The problem with Quentin Tarantino's antebellum era anti-slavery Spaghetti Western "Django Unchained" isn't that it isn't good, it is good, it is a blast of violence and energy that functions like an extended Tom And Jerry cartoon. The problem is "Django Unchained" is unimportant. It is like a bottle of soda pop, drink it and burp and it is over.
And Tarantino's earliest work, from the screenplay to "True Romance" and "Natural Born Killers" to the deeply patterned "Pulp Fiction" promised something a little more.
Django (Jamie Foxx) is saved from slavery by German Bounty Hunter Dr. King Schulz (Christopher Waltz -not a Nazi this time!) and they set out to save Django's wife. Three hours later they do it. Inbetween, they grift plantation owners like Don Johnson and Leonardo DiCaprio (who gives the word "rambunctious" whole new fields of green), kill white folks, dodge bullets and spit out Tarantino's dialogue with alacrity and a sneer.
So what is not to like? Everything is to like, Tarantino's made an anti-slavery movie which is self-evidently an anti-slavery movie and Spike Lee's condemnation of the movie as racist because of the use of the "n" is pathetic. Django is the hero, the only hero, a uber-man ala Clint Eastwood or Christopher Reeves. And the scene where the KKK surround the odd couples wagon in white hoods with the holes too smal is very funny and a straight up condemnation of their racism.
But Tarantino's movie doesn't stay with you. The audience gasp and laugh when the head "Head House Nigger" (Samuel L. Jackson) calls a mandingo Niggerules, and are subsequently impressed by Jackson's barbarity, but there is nothing more to it. The movie is an Antebellum Fantasy, the way "Inglorious Bastards" was a WW2 fantasy. It has a false tone to it and because it isn't clever enough, I mean, for a nearly three hour epic nothing all that epic happens, the movie never comes close to transcending itself. "Pulp Fiction" was about SAVIORS as much as it was about anything, Django Unchained is about ultra violence while preaching to the converted. I loved it but so what? Next…
Music is awesome, completely . Especially Rick Ross' "100 Black Coffins", maybe the only time I have ever completely admired him and the James Brown – 2Pac mash up is as great as you think it might be. Maybe better.
Movie: B+
Music: A