Brutal, captivating and tremendously funny.

Rating: 7/10 (30 March 2013)

If you thought "Inglourious Basterds" was revolting, wait until you see "Django Unchained". There is a sequence in the film where two slaves engage in an incredibly brutal brawl and an injured slave endlessly screams from the pain that has been inflicted on him. Moments later, the sequence climaxes and we see the winning slave bludgeoning the injured one to death with a hammer, which is mostly off-screen because the camera lingers on the other characters in the room. The sequence is intensely horrific, strangely audacious, and, in a way that can only be described as occult, fascinating because it says a lot of the characters. "Django Unchained" is the second historical epic from the freshly pickled imagination of Quentin Tarantino and the second one where he invents a history of his own, with inexorably gloating pleasure I might add.
Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave who is freed by a German dentist-turned-bounty- hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) from the shackles of a chain-gang. Django, who alone knows how the Brittle Brothers, Schultz's next victims, look like, accepts the offer that Schultz proposes to him. As they partner in bounty-hunting till the end of winter, Django becomes increasingly obsessed in finding his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is rumored to be in the Mississippi plantation Candyland, belonging to Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). The plot traces the attempts of Django and Schultz to rescue Broomhilda from the egotistic Candie.
In the ingenious world of Tarantino, the only thing predictable is how every single thing will make sense in the end. Gleefully excruciating from the word 'go', it takes a Tarantino to dazzle you with the fastidious violence, made majestic by the magical sound of Ennio Morricone. You can't do much but helplessly watch on as Tarantino's wondrous language protrudes the plot, often punctuating it with brutal gunfights and an irresistible undercurrent of dark humor. In a splendid sequence in the middle which is sure to make you cackle till it hurts, we see a bunch of bumbling Klu Klux Klan members complaining about the masks they have been made to wear. He stealthily, coyly and effectively sneaks in quivering tension in it too and does it all too well. Cinematographer Robert Richardson does his bit, masterfully capturing the flying droplets of blood that land on the flowers beds in the fields. The questions that often come up while watching a Tarantino film are : Has he done too much? Is he trying too hard? Isn't the plot a bit excessive? Yes, on all counts. But, then again, it's Tarantino we're talking about. And boy, has he got a way to do it.
Though technically sound, "Django Unchained" lacks the finesse and the diabolical cleverness that was much more prominent in Tarantino's last film, "Inglourious Basterds". Cramming every single idea that will go with the story is amusingly absurd, but here's an attempt to do it anyway. Close to three hours, the film begins to drag at the end, partly because the director isn't done with showing the heroics of his hero. This leads to another twenty minutes of nonsensical blood splattering, which was completely extraneous.
Of the performances, Christoph Waltz, who was brilliant in "Inglourious Basterds" is a marvel as Schultz, portraying him with the right amount of swagger and menace. DiCaprio and Samuel Jackson, in a supporting role, likewise are equally good. Foxx is slightly underwhelming as Django but manages to give a dignified performance.
"Django Unchained" isn't Tarantino's best film, but it's a tad better than "Inglourious Basterds" because Tarantino exerts a calm control over the script, something he faltered in in his last directorial outing. It's one film that makes you squirm in your seat even if you're not the squeamish type but it's a gorgeous piece of cinema that's unabashedly well worth a ticket. Succinctly put, it's an outrageous, darkly comic bloodbath that is as appalling as it is entertaining.