Film Review: Django Unchained | OregonLive.com

In his last movie, "Inglourious Basterds," Quentin Tarantino created his own alternate history, using a title and aesthetic inspired by an obscure B-movie. The fact that he's done the same thing with "Django Unchained" might make one worry that the onetime wunderkind was spinning his wheels. In fact, though, Tarantino's new film is, if not quite as inspired as "Basterds," is close enough to make no difference.

Taking World War II's place as the backdrop for Tarantino's patented blend of snappy patter and bloody anarchy is the antebellum American South, and instead of a "Dirty Dozen"-style band getting revenge on Nazis, we get a freed slave and a bearded bounty hunter taking on those who trade in the buying and selling of dark-skinned flesh.

Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), initially disguised as a dentist, bloodily frees Django (Jamie Foxx) from servitude in order to gain his assistance in tracking down a wanted man.? Once that's taken care of, the pair team up to rescue Django's wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of the villainous Francophile plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Though Washington, sadly, doesn?t have much to do, the three male leads all get opportunities to enjoyably ham it up?Foxx as the smoldering icon of revenge against the institution of slavery, DiCpario as its practically mustache-twirling embodiment, and especially Waltz, whose every appearance inspires gratitude towards Tarantino for bringing this unheralded German TV actor into his cinematic universe.

As always, that universe is peppered with familiar character actors, including Don Johnson as a Colonel Sanders-esque slaveowner, and trusty standby Samuel L. Jackson as a superficially obsequious, but secretly scheming, house slave.? Jackson takes a role which could have devolved into an offensive cartoon (especially considering things like Tarantino?s continued freewheeling use of a certain racist epithet), and makes him a fascinating enigma.

A busload of other recognizable names pepper the cast, including (but not limited to) Michael Parks, Jonah Hill, Walton Goggins, Bruce Dern, and Russ Tamblyn. ?Franco Nero, the star of the original 1966 spaghetti Western ?Django,? makes an amusing, brief showing. The director?s own appearance, toward the end of the movie, is an egocentric distraction, one of the few sour notes.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson has worked his usual magic, and Tarantino seems to have found an able substitute for his longtime editor, Sally Menke, who unexpectedly and tragically died in 2010. ?Django? doesn?t have the razor-sharp chronological complexity of ?Pulp Fiction,? but it?s ably paced.? A very funny scene involving a proto-Ku Klux Klan lynch mob and their poorly made hoods nevertheless seems a bit out of place, but there?s plenty of well-timed suspense.

Throughout his consistently impressive career, Tarantino has drawn on his love of exploitation cinema, grindhouse classics, and genre films.? In these last two movies, he glories in the simple moral compass they provide.? While so many ostensibly serious films explore murky moral ambiguity, Tarantino knows that it can be cathartic to see unalloyed villains, whether Nazis or slave owners, get their comeuppance.

(165 min., R, multiple locations) Grade: A-

Marc Mohan is a Portland freelance writer; marc.mohan@gmail.com

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2012/12/film_review_django_unchained.html

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