Tarantino unchanged

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2013)

Quentin Tarantino strikes again, this time with a pre-Civil War saga about a slave (Jamie Foxx, as the title character) who is set free by an eccentric bounty hunter (the highly competent Christoph Waltz, so brilliant in "Inglourious Basterds") in exchange for help in identifying a trio of killers he is pursuing. After a series of violent adventures involving spouts of blood and gobs of gore, the pair ends up at "Candieland," the Mississippi plantation of Mr. Calvin Candie (played with volcanic gusto by Leonardo DiCaprio) wherein dwells the captive wife of Django, a pretty slave girl (Kerry Washington) named "Broomhilde" because her former mistress had been German and had taught her the language so she would have someone to talk to. The mission: to trick Candie into selling Broomhilde to them so they can spirit her away to safety. As soon as the Candieland sequence gets going, "Django Unchained" becomes a fully accomplished, if excessively violent, film. Tarantino, as always, knows how to grip the audience with expert camera-work, gutsy performances and clever dialogue. DiCaprio is more compelling than he has been in any film since "Gilbert Grape" nearly 20 years ago. His pudgy boyishness, enhanced by blackened teeth, serves to convey corruption and vileness. Samuel L. Jackson in extreme "Uncle Ben"-house-slave mode is a revelation. What vast reserves of talent this man has. He steals every scene he is in, which is a mighty tall order with a cast like this. He is aided by a knowing script that explores the complexities of the long-term master-slave relationship. The way Tarantino ends the film punctuates this relationship superbly. The interactions between him and DiCaprio are sublime.
The movie is filled with typical Tarantino curlicues, the German-language angle with the Kerry Washington character being one of them. Some of Tarantino's trademark humorous banter against the backdrop of extreme violence, particularly the complaints of Klan riders about the fit of their hoods, goes on far too long, and the adventures of the central figures finally take on a repetitious "Raiders of the Lost Ark" serial quality. Twenty minutes of this type of filler could have been easily cut. And this is the problem with the film. It goes nowhere that Tarantino hasn't been before. But he does manage to make us feel something of the terror and dehumanization that prevailed in those bygone days. A scene in which a pack of ravenous dogs is set upon an escaped slave is as unwatchably horrific as anything on screens anywhere.