Tarantino’s “Big Troublemaker” Django: Unchained

Where to start when writing about Django: Unchained?

It’s humour, it’s suspense, it’s western, it’s blood splattering, it’s romance.
The last aspect might surprise you, but it’s just as simple as that. Django (Jamie Foxx) loves a woman and he would do anything for her.

When he’s taken by two slave traders to a new place of work, the small convoy is stopped by Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz), who needs Django to point him to the Brittle Brothers. They have a prize on their heads and Dr. Schultz is a bounty hunter. Schultz frees Django and together they go on a bounty hunting spree. Until one night, Schultz tells Django the story of Brünhilde and Siegfried and Django tells Schultz about his Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who is his wife and still a slave.

After they find out she is now kept at a plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) called Candyland, they think of a plan to buy her and set her free so that Django and Broomhilda can live happily ever after.

The opening credits are accompanied by Django, belonging to the soundtrack of the eponymous and controversial movie Django (1966). Among the soundtrack there are also original songs by Elisa and Ennio Morricone (Ancora Qui), Rick Ross (100 Black Coffins), and John Legend (Who Did That to You?). The soundtrack is just as diverse as the movie.

The movie has met with some controversy about the use of the word “nigger” throughout the movie and for making historical events (slavery) more violent than it needed to be. Fellow director commented on Quentin Tarantino’s new film that he found it “disrespectful to [his] ancestors”. There were even comments on the violence against the “whites” in the movie, saying that it is just another post-modern excuse for anti-white bigotry.

As for the violence: yes, there is a lot of it. Shooting, whipping, cutting, hanging, stomping, and exploding are all there. I don’t think it’s like watching a gore movie; it’s more like watching pictures in a graphic novel. There are so many great shots in there, so many great scenes (e.g. the one with the ‘precursor’ of the Ku Klux Clan) and an abundance of fantastic one-liners (e.g. “Hey there little troublemaker.”).

I thought all the actors in this film were magnificent, like the completely believable “turn-coat” house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), the almost bipolar character of Monsieur Candie was brilliantly put on the silver screen by DiCaprio, as was the bounty hunter with a heart of gold by Waltz and the ex-slave out for revenge by Foxx.

Go see this movie for the Tarantino-ness, the amazing shots, scenes, music, cast and one-liners!