Pure Cinema

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2013)

In 1858, in Texas, the former German dentist Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) meets the slave Django (Jamie Foxx) in a lonely road while being transported by the slavers Speck Brothers. He asks if Django knows the Brittle Brothers and with the affirmative, he kills one of his masters and takes Django for himself, but treats him like an equal. Then Dr. Schultz tells that he is a bounty hunter chasing John, Ellis and Roger Brittle and proposes a deal to Django: if he helps him, he would give his freedom, a horse and US$ 75.00 for him. Django accepts the deal and Dr. Schultz trains him to be his deputy. They kill the brothers in Daughtray and Django tells that he would use the money to buy the freedom of his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is a slave that speaks German. Dr. Schultz proposes another deal to Django: if he teams-up with him during the winter, he would give one-third of the rewards and help him to rescue Broomhilda. Django accepts his new deal and they become friends. After the winter, Dr. Schultz goes to Gatlinburgh and learns that Broomhilda was sold to the ruthless Calvin Candie von Shaft (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lives in the Candyland Farm, in Mississippi. Dr. Schultz plots a scheme with Django to lure Calvin and rescue Broomhilda from him. But his cruel minion Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) is not easily fooled.
From anybody other than Quentin Tarantino, this would be their life's best work, but from Quentin, this was a little underwhelming, especially after having done the brilliantly subversive Inglourious Basterds with such perfection before this one. Here he excessively panders to his own vices, especially in the third act. The spatterfests were too silly and overlong. Jamie Foxx is inconsistent and doesn't convincingly pull off his character throughout the movie and this becomes more obvious towards the end when everything rests on his shoulder without Waltz and Di Caprio supporting him. For a movie that is all about him, he makes for one hell of a boring character and the actor wasn't able to bring many emotions that the character did require. The first choice for the role was apparently Will Smith who declined the role, and in my opinion, he would have made a good Django Freeman. Jackson was hilarious and Waltz was great as usual, but Di Caprio surprised me big time. He should have also been nominated for an Oscar for his flamboyant and sadistic performance. Kerry Washington is nothing but a damsel in distress which is consistent with the time and racism that prevailed back then. Tarantino also played two characters in the movie to hilarious effect. At the end of the day, this is a pure cinematic experience with great music and songs integrated with such fluidity along with sweeping visuals and reminds me of why I love movies so much.
8/10