Glourious Waltz

Rating: 7/10 (17 October 2015)

I first saw Christoph Waltz in "Inglourious Basterds." Based on the title, I thought Tarantino had finally gone over the edge, but no, he stayed within a razor's width and produced the most amazing mish-mash of violence, Nazi culture, Jewish culture, war, and wishful thinking about Hitler and movie theaters, all carried by the incredible Waltz.
Tarantino likes to work with certain buddies, and we get to see them along with Waltz in "Django" (the D is silent). Like Brad Pitt, who is great here as the plantation owner who listens to his confidante Stephen, an Uncle Tom character played immensely well by Samuel Jackson, who is almost not recognizable in the role, that's how much he got into the character.
The story moseys along well: Waltz (as the bounty-hunter Dr. Schultz) needs Foxx (who plays Django the slave) to identify some targets, and the two strike up a deal: Foxx helps out Waltz collect bodies for money, and Waltz will help him get his enslaved wife back from Pitt. "Broomhilda von Shaft" is the name of this German-speaking slavegirl, in some exquisite irony that this film is full of. After all, we're talking Tarantino here.
Tarantino serves up plenty of nice spaghetti western touches, from Morricone music, to Franco Nero, and the hyperviolence erupts at just the right times to make you wince, and at the same time think "I guess there must be a lot more blood splattering around in real gunfights when people get shot in the head than they show in those ordinary western..."
Still, the plot stumbles a bit as it gets into the unexpected twists and turns that Tarantino is so famous for. The first one works pretty well: Waltz finally shoots Pitt rather than shake his hand on a deal that would make all parties happy, such is his disgust for slavery and one of its main perpetrators. The second one is ridiculous, and this film is NOT "Inglourious Basterds," where a huge touch of surrealism works just fine: no slave handlers are going to fork over their weapons to a potentially dangerous slave, no matter how good his plan for making them eleven kilobucks. From there to the ending, the movie devolves into the surreal as in "Basterds" or "Apocalypse Now," but unlike those films, it really does not fit well at the end of this period piece western. Yes, Tarantino has a penchant for being over the top, and we love him for it, but it just doesn't quite work here the way it did in "Basterds" or "Kill Bill" or "Pulp Fiction." This is a western, for crying out loud!
So for a somewhat botched last half hour, but still pulling all the stops as deftly as usual, I give this one a 7/10.