Django Unchained

I am a hardcore Tarantino fan and I must say I had great expectations for this movie. I can now honestly say that in my opinion Django Unchained is Tarantino's worst film to this day. Lets start with the first major flaw. The soundtrack. Usually Tarantino has great taste for his soundtracks and on most of his movies (pulp fiction, reservoir dogs, kill bill) it actually is a fundamental part and complements the film. On Django it seems that Mr. Tarantino got Lil Wayne to choose some of the tracks. Hip Hop in a western?? Completely ruined the movie for me. Second, the length of the movie is ridiculously long... Almost 3 hours. Usually films of such lengths have intricate plot lines and/or are made to tell an exceptionally long story. Not in this case. The movie could have easily been 100 minutes long. If it wasn't for the excessive and unnecessary dialogues, the useless KKK scene, the first 45 minutes of the movie which have almost nothing to do with the main plot line. The last 30 minutes of bloodshed serve to no use and I guess is just a * of the director. Mr. Tarantino seems to lose the sense of time and you can never tell where his ego ends and the plot begins. Third, bad acting. Jamie Foxx is impalpable. Besides a few punch lines and some dramatic moments Foxx doesn't portray the slave from the pre-civil war era but mostly comes off as a thug from the hood. Di Caprio is too pretty-faced to seriously be the villain in this movie and if it wasn't for the horrors happening around the character (Candie) you could hardly tell he's the bad guy. Waltz and Jackson on the other hand with their excellent performances keep this movie together. I was really hoping Tarantino, with such an all-star cast, could have pulled off a both socially relevant and at the same time entertaining film, but again I was mistaken.

I'll get to the heart of the matter. "Reservoir Dogs" was spot on. It was a realistic (in terms of the outcome) yet highly stylized gangster film. It said to the viewer, "I know you are expecting X, Y, and Z, but isn't it time you 'grew up' already? Do you want to see the same movie over and over again?" 'Bad guys' do bad things and usually self-destruct in one way or another at a young age. We saw that no matter how hard one might try, you cannot polish a turd, as they say. Despite the cute dialogue, these guys are bad, do bad things, and the results are bad. If that heist would have 'succeeded,' they just would have gotten themselves killed or jailed some other way. it was a 'wake up call,' an inversion, or perhaps the best way to think of it is that it wasn't what it seemed to be. It was just a bunch of 'simulacra' thrown together to resemble a feature-length film. It succeeded brilliantly, but Tarantino had nowhere to go after that, other than to stylize and fabricate as much as possible, creating ludicrous, absurd movies that had no point. If you saw one you didn't need to see another. "Django Unchained" is more of a postscript. It's not as ridiculous or as historically inaccurate as it could have been, but even it if had been, what would it have mattered? He's been there and done that, and apparently can't figure out what to do now other than to repeat the past. He is in the "Woody Allen Zone" at this point (just substitute the "white," rich, self-absorbed complainers for retro and homicidal, yet more "diverse" and colorful characters in Tarantino's last several films), in my opinion, meaning that he's "mailing it in" for the money. The movie is too long and very quickly the viewer can predict the kinds of things that will transpire. I don't play violent video games (or any video games at all), but after watching this I was thinking that it would be much more interesting in every way to just do that; after perhaps twenty minutes (or less) I'd get my fill of this sort of thing and could use the other two hours and change to do something "productive." The following is my highly speculative, "inside the mind" history (or is it an anti-history) of Tarantino's "MO:" After "Reservoir Dogs," he had one last idea, essentially the end of the "Hollywood Blockbuster" disguised as a Hollywood Blockbuster (an anti-Hollywood Blockbuster?). It would be a highly stylized, very violent move that would appear to have several compelling "back stories." The reality is that it had none, and once the viewer figures this out, he or she should tell himself/herself that there is no reason to watch such films any longer, other than as some sort of "cheap chill," basically "violence *." That blockbuster, of course, was "Pulp Fiction." The title "gave away" the director's thoughts: "stop watching my films if you are an intelligent, empathetic person." Of course you may have watched one or two more because you couldn't be sure, but at this point his movies are some sort of "post-modern," anti-film, non-story. Watch them, expecting something different, and as they say, the joke is on you. Instead, I suggest you consider taking a course on the history of film, film criticism, or something along those lines. Seeing "Django" is like being the "best" guest at a "dinner for schmucks." So, I guess the most interesting question now is, what do we make of a reviewer who realizes what is occurring yet still feels compelled to watch these anti-films in order to tell others not to be the butt of a joke? Is this an anti-review? A "pulp" review?

Jesus, where to begin. Completely juvenile, rabbit trails galore, slow moving, get to the firkin point. The way the scenes drag and the endless explaining and talking. This movie was so distasteful, predictable and irritating. First of all, Foxx was miscast, he does not do period well, at all, totally unbelievable here, after years of slavery he's suddenly the fastes gun in the west, PLEASE! The music, what are we to make of the modern day music with the period events here, you can't take any of it seriously. I had to laugh was so absolutely silly and out of place. I have lost all respect for writer/director, the actors I can only hope were in it for the money, but they lose my vote now too. Open your EYES folks, for god sakes this is all about bringing division, "I wanna shoot white people and get paid for it". WOW, talk about the globalist elite wanting to distract and divide, this is one of their vehicles. Good for you Hollywood and Washington DC, add another notch to your ugly crown.