This wasn't something I was fully intending to see but was dragged by my boyfriend, I made him sit through Les Miserables so I suppose it was only fair. When my boyfriend groaned that my musical odyssey of sad people was too long my immediate response was that this film could have ended half an hour earlier than it did. So that was my first response... To be honest that was my only real complaint, it was a decent film. It wasn't a bad film; and by using the word bad in a statement of course that casts a dark shadow on my opinion as I'm not exactly saying it was good. I preferred Michael Fassbender, ahem, Inglorious Basterds, overall there's just a lot less going on, the story is so thin in comparison, but that's my opinion on it. The story was bit too straightforward, predictable almost, but overall flat, in comparison to the sweeping and tightly scripted Inglorious Basterds. It seems like Tarantino is having a bit more fun here, what you have is a decent fun film but it's just on the wrong side of flabby.
We all get a good old laugh at our modern sensibilities being trotted about by Christoph Waltz's character as he engages with the racist southern America, we all have a jolly good laugh at people using the 'N' word, and the culture shock of seeing a free African-American dressed as little boy blue whipping some arsehole white chaps. In fact the film mines most of it's laughs out of the inherent racism of the past*, and how fun it is to watch people getting shot, it's all tomato ketchup you know? It's obvious it's fake but it's so ostentatiously fake that it doesn't even pretend to be anything less, the people can roll around and scream on the floor but it's so obviously fake, it's all just a laugh, or perhaps we really have become desensitised to violence in cinema, or perhaps Tarantino films... Apart from the hilarity mined from that, the film isn't actually all that funny, jokes about chaps with bags on their heads aside. It's humorous but it's not laugh out loud hilarious, although Foxx's little boy blue outfit, will be forever a fun visual gag, that's probably just me...
So the story is about Django (the D is silent - although hearing a white man screaming d-jango whilst in the throes of death was a humorous aside.) and the Colonel, wait... I'm not sure I can remember his name now... Anyways it's Christoph Waltz and he plays the Colonel, the Colonel is a bounty hunter who happens upon DJ-ango, and enlists his help to find his latest quarry, he thus sets him free and assists him in finding his wife Broomhilda who has been bought by Leonardo DiCaprio (that man will never outgrow those baby blues... and thus will never be taken seriously... poor man...) thus they go on a mish to save Broomhilda. The pacing is pretty terrible, we have the set up, we have the bounty hunting, we spend an age at DiCaprio's house and then there is the inevitable bloodbath but then the film doesn't end there, we get the revenge sequence and we see how DJ-Jangles has grown. It just all runs on from itself, doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but hey that's just me.
The performances are as always fun to observe, Jamie Foxx plays sullen wary angry Do-jangles, this plays of brilliantly against the delightfully cheerful Colonel played by Christoph Waltz. Jamie Foxx has been given the nod for a Best Actor Oscar and Waltz has walked away with the Golden Globe for his performance, so good times all around. Leonardo is once again left in the cold, he is working extremely hard to be fun and menacing and all that jazz that comes with rich evil white man, but he's about as menacing as a puppy. Samuel Jackson takes a fun turn as DiCaprio's head of house playing the wizened batty bugger by day, sly know-it-all confidante for his master.
So it's all a bit of fun, it's not laugh out loud hilarious, it's a bit long, it's fun but it's a bit over the top, the performances are reliable and excellent, it pokes fun at slavery with a knowing modern nod, it's ridiculous, it's fun, it's a massive budget romp and it's Tarantino enjoying himself. Props to him. With the Weinsteins essentially buying heavy weight attention it means Tarantino can earn more money to make more ridiculous historical rewrites and indulge in his greatest fantasies, I can't deny him that. I'm sure I've repeated myself way too much in this... There's only so much I can say! As I trawl through the Oscar Best Film list, it's becoming more apparent I've ran out fun ones... The rest is silence... Or just achingly dull, we'll have to wait and see.
*The KKK get a hilarious scene, biggest laugh of the film, blood free, whereby their white flour sacks have the eyeholes cut wrong in them, this causes some infighting amongst the angry mob, who can't decide whether to wear their hoods even though they impair their vision. If the whole film had this wit about this, well shocking humour whilst poking fun at the horrors of history, it probably would have been a bit better...
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