Django Unchained

Year: 2012

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Tarantino

Review

i’m a tarantino fan, but i have to admit not looking forward to his last two films. perhaps it’s the general lack of good directors these days couple with the disappointment of fading talent from fincher, anderson, coens, and tarantino himself. some of these people are still making films worthy of praise, but i can pretty safely say with all of them that their best is behind them and that’s made me sad lately. the other thing i’ve found with directors who have name recognition is that they don’t seem to be able to edit themselves much anymore. apatow, cameron and tarantino have all been guilty of this in their latest films. so, working backwards, i present the worst part of the film: the ending, which should have been edited out, but wasn’t because it’s tarantino.

the final 20+ minutes of tacked on nothingness aside, the film was was very good. it does the usual tarantino thing, which is to borrow from other films/genres and digest and regurgitate them into a somehow much more palatable form. i’ve never seen the many django films of the 60s and 70s so i can’t comment too much on this relative to those. i have seen a million 70s revenge films, though, and this one fits in with those. the best of them have a real catharsis and allow the audience to feel the pain of the victim as well as the inevitable comeuppance.

overall a solid picture with some great writing and performances. i only wish he had a stronger producer to rein him in. oh, i also wish that he had gotten the beginning of the civil war right. the film takes place in “1858, 2 years before the civil war.” wrong. the civil war began in 1861.

Watched in theater