I don’t like Quentin Tarantino. There I said it. Over the
years although I may have begun to slowly come around. And when I say come
around I mean stop hating him with a passion and maybe actually tolerate and
enjoy certain aspects of his films. Take Inglorious Basterds for instance,
anyone who has seen it will remember the scene where Michael Fassbender and
Diane Kruger are meeting in the bar covertly only to be hassled by the Nazi
Officer. Pure and gripping cinema, but a shame that the film descends into
utter and unadulterated madness, ruining what was in turn an amazing first act.
Bearing that in mind, as a consummate professional, I went into the viewing of
Django Unchained with an open mind. After all, it does have Leonardo Di Caprio
and Christoph Waltz on the billing.
Set in a pre-Civil War America in the South it tells the
story of a bounty hunter who hires an ex-slave to help with his business of
making money off the dead. The first act of the film is gripping, well-paced
and beautifully directed. Genuine laughs a plenty while hitting hard with the
graphic scenes of slavery and abuse. But
soon enough like all Tarantino films the plot descends into the ridiculous
nearing the end of the second act. Normally it would have irked this reviewer
to no end but at last this was a film that called for a guns blazing, bloody,
no holes bared shoot out. After all it’s a western, a western paying homage to
its b-grade counterparts. Finally Tarantino had found a genre where this kind
of carry on was acceptable.
Don’t get me wrong though, there are still faults with this
movie (See Jamie Foxx in general and a terribly jarring Tarantino cameo) but
the positives tend to majorly outweigh the negatives. Christoph Waltz and Leonardo Di Caprio seem
to be having some brilliant competition as to who can be the most politely
menacing person around them there parts and it’s a joy to watch. Some gripping
scenes that will linger long after viewing, Django could have been disastrous
but it wasn’t, it was pretty delightful.
XXX
