Not the great film it could have been

Rating: 6/10 (13 January 2013)

You would be forgiven that, during a screening of Quentin Tarantino's latest Django Unchained, that one of the many directors the film plays homage to, is John Ford. After all, Ford all but made the American western genre his own, from early silents such as The Iron Horse (1924), to well-established classics like My Darling Clementine (1946) and The Searchers (1956), he brought critical adoration to a genre that was then seen as nothing more than popcorn cinema. But Tarantino hates John Ford, to quote - "to say the least, I hate him [...] It really is people like that that kept alive this idea of Anglo-Saxon humanity compared to everybody else's humanity." So, in Django, do we have a post-modern, anti-Ford American West, where a freed black slave is the hero, and the White Man the devil? Well, kinda. But this is Tarantino, and from what was clear from his previous film Inglourious Basterds (2009), he doesn't do things the regular way.
Very much like Inglourious Basterds, the most intriguing thing I found with Django is its sheer unpredictability. The later work of Tarantino have elected to follow very much they're own path, ignoring narrative convention or story-telling tradition in favour of certain scenes or ideas that the director wants there, or focusing on a certain character when they really have no purpose being there. For example, August Diehl's Major Hellstrom appears from nowhere in possibly the finest scene from Inglorious Basterds. He has no other scenes, but his character is instantly intriguing, whereas such a scene and character wouldn't have been given neither the depth or the screen-time if done by somebody else. It is a basic cover-gets-blown scene, seen in a thousand other films, but in Basterds it becomes a masterwork of tension, and features some of Tarantino's best ever dialogue. You could call it indulgent, but Tarantino sees the opportunity to squeeze as much as he can from every possible moment.
Django follows the same idea, but whereas this approach complimented Basterds' chapter-based structure and plethora of supporting characters and extended cameos, Django has neither the wealth of central characters, nor the sheer scope to be a complete success, or to justify it's massive 165-minute running-time. The narrative hook of Django finding his wife is given very little screen-time or focus that by the time this becomes important, its very difficult to really care. The more intriguing relationship that comes out of the film is in fact the one between Django and Schultz - polar opposites in terms of societal position and background - yet both in a situation that calls for them needing each other. The main bulk of the first two-thirds follows the two in the tradition of a buddy-movie, only they get along, and Tarantino manages to eject some fine comic moments into these scenes, as well some actually quite touching ones.
Although he doesn't possess the sociopathic charisma as his Hans Landa from Basterds did, the character of Schultz is another triumph for Tarantino and Waltz both, the latter being recognised again by the Academy and receiving a Best Supporting Actor nod. Like Landa, Schultz is a social intellectual, a man able to use his wits and charm to lure his victims into a false sense of security before either blowing the top of their head off, or outwitting a town's marshal. But it is Waltz - and DiCaprio's maniacal plantation owner - that comes out of this most memorable, not the film's protagonist, Django. Foxx is perfectly fine in the role, as angry and posturing as you would want ("you gonna let me pick my own wardrobe?"), but sadly just as un-memorable. Tarantino seems so wrapped up in Schultz and the film's extreme violence that Django gets left out in the rain, lacking the iconic costume or the stand-out scene that, say, Uma Thurman's The Bride in Kill Bill (2003-2004) had.
Spike Lee has said he will be boycotting the film, claiming the slave trade is not a subject for exploiting or trivialising, and opposes the excessive use of the 'n' word (something he complained about in Jackie Brown (1997) - a film that celebrated one of the most important era's for Black Cinema). It's a shame he will never see the film, as he would realise that not only does Tarantino take the matter seriously, but is the most brutal and explicit depiction of it I've ever seen. The violence is often over-the-top and cartoonish, yes, but is also disturbing and genuinely horrific (the Mandingo fight and dog scene being particular memorable). Tarantino also mocks the KKK (or an early version of it) in a scene which is in direct reference to John Ford playing one of the charging KKK in The Birth of a Nation (1915). Before the charge, they argue about the badly made eye-holes in their masks. It's a light scene given their intention, but goes on far too long to remain funny.
As much as I dislike Tarantino (as a person), his films will always be irresistibly intriguing. Regardless of whether they're self-indulgent missteps such as Death Proof (2007), or strokes of genius like Inglourious Basterds, you will always be getting something profoundly different to anything that any other director is even contemplating. Django is no different, setting out on one path and ending up wandering several detours, like a fat kid happily chasing the scent of gingerbread. When we do get to the end, it suffers from a serious anti- climax - disappointing given the 150-minute build-up. This is not the great film it really could have been, due to the neglect of its lead, a lack of real focus, and a final half hour that seems to strive for super-cool moments of iconography, rather than giving the film the satisfying ending that it really deserves. Ennio Morricone's title song is amazing, however.
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