Review of Django Unchained (2012) by Crazyspaceman — 04 Jan 2013

While I was extremely excited to see Tarantino's take on a Spaghetti Western Slave Revenge story, the results were mixed. It wasn't what any of us expected.

The first sequences was humorous, but failed to capture Tarantino's aim at creating tension - a theme that would plague the film for much of its nearly three hour gargantuan running time. When the dialogue crackled, his intentional quick zooms dampened the mood. When the action was sharp, his intention to add humor ruined the shock value.

Where characters and dialogue are usually his strong point, Tarantino instead seemed to be going for laughs by using the N word in every possible way. Amusing for awhile, but it wore off at the 2/3 mark.

The film couldn't have been cast better - From Waltz and Foxx through every antagonist and bit part - special marks for Don Johnson who was both a charming southern gentlemen and an angry racist in every other sentence. Di Caprio nailed his role, which in a movie of overacting, seemed to be nuanced in the best ways possible.

A day later, I still don't know if Samuel L Jackson stole the show or ruined it. His performance was uneven, but carried the 3rd act.

If Tarantino continues to make his brand of genre pics, I will watch them, as he clearly enjoys making movies as much as we like watching them. But he's a victim of Inglorious' critical success, as a good 25-30 minutes could have been cut out of this film and made it even stronger.