With his heavy use of violence, razor sharp dialog, fun music and many occations of the word "nigger", Tarantino has captured generations with his many masterpieces, Pulp fiction and Reservoir dogs as the most common favorites.
While both of them are high quality films in many ways, I still dare say that they're kind of overrated.
It's not that they're bad, it's just that he has done better than those two, at least in my opinion. Enter Inglorious basterds, a movie of a genre I like to call Hämnd movies, or Minority revenge. Tarantino's work before Basterds has mostly consisted of crime dramas and action. On paper, they don't sound all too exciting, Basterds, however, sounds interesting even on paper: Jewish americans killing nazis. While sometimes keeping to the usual WW2 movie formula of jews being victimized by nazis and usual nazis-hunting-down-jews, it also contained jews killing nazis and scalping them. Sure, Tarantino's movies all have action and shooting scenes, but none of them outright told history to screw itself an decided to have fun with it without being too disrespecful. This is something I don't see all that often, at least not in the way Tarantino presents it, and it's something I really enjoy. To me, Inglorious basterds is Tarantinos TRUE masterpiece.
So I thought until I saw this movie.
There are few movies I've seen more than once in the theaters and payed full price for them each time, but this is one of them. This movie clocks in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, but honestly, not one of those minutes contain a dull moment; it's always fun and exciting, but in different ways. Like I said about Basterds, this movie is sort of more movies in one, some might find it disturbing, but I don't. Basterds is both a traditional WW2 drama with nazis hunting jews, most notably in the first scene which almost seems like something out of Schindler's list, but also a to-hell-with-history-let's-have-fun movie with jews shooting nazis and even beating one with a baseball bat. Django unchained is much like an action movie at first, but later become much more of a thrilling drama before finally becomming an action flick again. People often call this a western, but from what little I know, Tarantino himself doesn't concider it one. Honestly, being able to mix two kinds of movies into one without the other condtradicting the first or the like is a sign of Tarantino's talent as a film director. Not everyone could pull this off well, but he managed to.
I will not, as per usual, talk about the plot of the movie too much, as I always encourage readers to find out themselves, as it's the part of a movie's journey to me. All I will say that it contains black people killing evil slave drivers. If you wanted to see Inglorious basterds set in pre Civil war USA, but with blacks killing racists, this is the movie for you. Even if it doesn't sound like the movie for you, check it out anyway, you might be delightfully suprised.
Before going into the acting and sound, let's talk about the more touchy subjects of this movie. Yes, this movie contains a LOT of usage of "nigger" and it's also violent by many standards. One could justify the usage of the racist terms becuase racism was practically encouraged back then and "nigger" was probably a very common term, if not the only one, for black people. One could say that they could use "negro" some more, since it's regarded as less offensive, but eveyone who knows about Quentin Tarantino also knows that he has an obsession with that word, and he doesn't mean it it a racists sort of way (at least not privately), and pretty much all his movies contain it more or less in one way or another.I do not find it too offensive, as most people who use it in this movie are evil and mostly end up dead, so in a way, the movie encourage you NOT to use it. Additionally, there's no solid evidence that people forced slaves to fight for entertainment, but it wouldn't suprise me if some scum did it in real life anyway. This movie may and may not be offensive to black people, and this movie might not age well in this regard in the future. Honestly, I don't mind it, since it doesn't come off as mean spirited or anything to me, it's not like it's Jud süss. Frankly, most smart people in this movie are black, and most whites (one notable exeption, of course) are portrayed as racist and stereotypical rednecks, oftenly both. If anything, this is sort of racist to white people as well, but they're not a minority, so they don't always notice that kind of stuff themselves. This is is overanalyzing, of course, as I think most people will enjoy it regardless of any "controversy", because there is none (to me).
Let's talk about one of the movies strongest points: the acting. Pretty much every actor in this movie does a really good, DiCaprio and Waltz being the most notable. While I think that Waltz isn't deserving of an oscar for best supporting actor again, he still does a fine job, and shows why he's one of the best in all of Hollywood right now. Much like Ben Affleck, DiCaprio has been a bit of a punchline. I remember my fellow female classmated having pictures of him on their desks, and people claiming he was nothing but a pretty face in Titanic. Like Dick Grayson himself said, you can't stay the boy wonder forever, as people seems to appreciate him since The aviator, which earned him an oscar nomination for best actor. Personally, I think he first started to shine in The departed, but this movie proves that the man has genuine acting skills. Polish it a bit more, and that oscar will finally be yours, Mr DiCaprio!
Jamie Foxx does a good job portraying the main character Django (the d is silent). Unfortunately, Django isn't TOO interesting as a character. The movie shows his history and personality quite well, but he is, too bad as it is, outshined by the two other main characters. Granted, he is rather cool and suffices as a main character, but his character isn't all too deep, but he's not bad or anything. Fortunately, Foxx's talent as an actor helps portraying the weak and strong sides of Django, the slave begging for his wife to be spared and the gunslinging badass who makes The man with no name look like 7 year old with a cork pistol. Also, the McGuffin in this movie is technically a woman, which some might find annoying. Just a heads up.
To those wondering why I have yet to speak of Samuel L Jackson's acting in this film: honestly, he's good in pretty much everything he's in, I do not need to talk about how talented that man is, you already know that by now.
The soundtrack to this movie is, to put it simple, awesome! I listened through it before watching the movie, which was a huge mistake. It doesn't seem too all that before actually hearing them in the context of the movie. Most notably, I didn't think the song Ode to Django was too good, especially since it was made by the brilliant RZA, but when the speakers in the theaters started pumping that song at full scale, my fist wanted to pump and my mouth wanted to shout "Oh yeah!". I didn't, but it was close. Bottom line, Tarantino has always picked good songs for his movies, and this one might have the most solid soundtracks of them all. Highly recommended once you've watched the movie.
There are two things I dislike in cinematography that is fairly frequently used that I noticed in this movie: tilted angle and spinning camera. I dispise shakey cam above both of these if done incorrectly, but that's beside the point. Fortunately, the few tilted angles work, particularly towards the ending when, not going to give too many details, a character is upside down. I don't remember the camera spinning around for no good reason, like in Jackie Brown, but the camera does move around a bit, but not in the way I found annoying. The reason I bring this up is because, like previously stated, because they're fairly common things I don't like, and previous Tarantino titles have used them, both poorly and sucessfully, and Django unchained uses them to some part and does it fairly well. Overall, the movie is pretty well shot, aside from a few shots that doesn't work too well (Tarantino has this odd habit of zooming in on seemingly uninportant stuff, like a person turning on their car or pouring up a drink), but it's still well done. The action in this movie will leave anyone satisfied, and is one of the many highlights of the movie. I could go on to talk about them, but then I'd spoil the fun for people who have yet to see this funfest of a movie.
Tarantino is known for having scenes that drag out for long, scenes that might not even be all too important to the plot. This movie is no exeption. However, like most of his movies, they're salvaged by the fact that the dialog is always fun, well written, and usually realistic. The one line of dialog I didn't like in this flick is when a character asks if another character is scary (once again, I'm vague on details on purpose). Other than that, I have no singnificant complaints. This is probably the part that makes this movie good even for people who don't like fairly violent movies, the good acting and dialog usually help them get invested, even if blood is shed from time to time. That's one of the best thing I can say about any director; that anyone can enjoy their movies and it sometimes surpasses their intended audience. If you're one of those who loves well written movies, don't mind that they're a little long, and have good action in them, this movie is a match made in heaven for you. If not, you're going to love this movie anyway.
In conclusion: this is an action-packed, well written movie with great acting to boot. It's currently in theaters, but might not be for much longer. If not, buy this movie, Tarantino deserves your money for this masterpiece!
Summary: While it might be regarded as controversial with its violence and alleged "racism", this movie is a true thrill. Great acting, great soundtrack, great dialog and great action cannot be wrong: buy this movie, it's Tarantino's best work yet!
Grade: 8/10
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