Oscar-down #7: Django Unchained

(Will counts down his favorite Best Picture noms! #9, #8)

#7: Django Unchained

    In a pre-Civil War South, freed slave Django (Jaime Foxx) partners with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) in order to rescue his wife from a vicious plantation owner.

Why this should be higher:
   If ever there was an actor born to recite Tarrantinoniain dialogue it's Waltz, who delivers his lengthy, twisty monologues with a pitch-perfect blend of playfulness and steely resolve. But even he is upstaged by some of his costars. Leonardo DiCaprio, taking his first supporting role in over a decade, is cast wonderfully against-type as a sadistic plantation owner whose twisted arrogance bubbles out from under a gentlemanly veneer. Meanwhile Samuel L. Jackson gives a daring performance as a hatred-fueled house slave, managing to become the most vile character in a film filled with monsters.

Give this man more villainous roles. Now.

   Quentin Tarrantino brings all of his usually stylized action and uniquely verbiose dialogue to bear in his newest work on Revenge. Some people chastise Tarrantino for being too over-the-top and exploitative, especially with regards to violence. These people are miss the point. Django Unchained certainly has moments of spectacular violence and cartoonish levels of bloodshed, including one of the most thrilling cinematic shootouts in years. But behind its pulpy take on spaghetti Westerns, Tarrantino's film presents a depiction of the realities of slavery more brutal and unflinching than most other directors would dare. Django makes you think about the violence its portraying, and the result is a movie not only entertaining, but uncomfortably reflective.

Why it isn't:
   Still, Django stands as my 2nd least favorite Tarrantino film. For one thing the film runs 180 minutes, and it shows. I wanted to check my watch more often during this film than for any of the other nominees (and any other film period this year except for The Hobbit). Contributing to this problem is that Django is the most straight-forward film Tarrantino has ever made; there's no timeline trickery and with the exception of a few minor twists the general arc of the film can be predicted fairly early on. Thus while there are exciting action and dialogue setpieces, by the third hour the space between these moments tends to drag.

   The film's other biggest problem is Django himself. Jamie Foxx gives a solid  and restrained performance as the freed slave but the character frequently comes off as a bit too reserved. Normally I'm all for subtlety and nuance, but given the film's outlandish direction and characters, Django sometimes feels like he was dropped in from a different movie. The disconnect between Tarrantino's style and his subject matter can also make for some jarring tonal shifts. One scene may feature comical wordplay and Hollywood explosions, the next a slave being torn apart by dogs. Unlike Inglorious Basterds before it, Django never quite finds its middle ground between being an action-packed revenge flick and a movie highlighting historical atrocities, and as a result it doesn't fully work as either.