DJANGO UNCHAINED
Ask any English film student who their favourite contemporary writer-director is and chances are they won't immediately list Michael Haneke. Or the Coen Brothers. Or even Paul Thomas Anderson. The first name that will likely escape their lips is Quentin Tarantino, one of cinema's modern day mavericks, famous for his non-linear narratives and aestheticization of violence. His first two pictures, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, arguably his best, are two of cinema's most beloved films, having gained humongous cult followings amongst critcs and students alike over the past two decades. His last effort, the riotous Inglorious Basterds, signalled a return to form, partly due to the acting chops of Christoph Waltz. A story about slavery in the guise of a spaghetti western, Django Unchained effectively demonstrates that no director pays better homage to genres of past than Tarantino.
When German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultze (Christoph Waltz) frees American slave Django (Jamie Foxx), the two set off on a mission to free the latter's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of the callous Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a plantation owner with a penchant for orchestrating violent "Mandingo" fights between his slaves. When Candie's loyal house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) figures out the duo's ruse to rescue Broomilda, all hell breaks loose....
Since his accomplished Oscar winning turn as Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's Ray, Foxx's acting career has taken a nosedive. Django sees him back on form as the vengeful anti-hero, keen to protect his honour and his wife. It is not a particularly complex role, however, it is one he executes with considerable gusto and for that he must be lauded.
Waltz is Tarantino's crowning success. His character is the polar opposite of Django's: he is cool, calm and collected, reviewing each dire situation encountered with optimism. Waltz is effortlessly humorous, depicting Schultze with great enthusiasm and nuanced subtlety.
Django Unchained, like Inglorious Basterds, is likely to have misfired if Waltz had not filled Schultze's shoes. There is a likelihood he may win Best Supporting Actor, though the pessimist in me would argue that Alan Arkin will bag it instead.
Django has earned treble its whopping budget of $100m, a potent indicator of its popularity. Tarantino has a knack for entertaining his audiences with fascinatingly trivial dialogue and wildly exaggerated brutality (the denizens of Django fly backwards whenever shot, their blood spattering in all directions). Django may not win Best Picture Oscar but 50 years from now, it will still be fondly remembered alongside Tarantino's previous masterpieces.
Tarantino's latest is hilarious, ludicrous and perhaps overly long at 2 hours and 45 minutes: a rollercoaster ride of hyperbole you really ought to experience.