Django Unchained (2012)

Django Unchained
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo Di Caprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington
Grade: C

As it so often goes with Tarantino films “Django Unchained” aims for gratuity at the expense of narrative cohesion, the marked difference between this and the rest of his oeuvre being that – as it always threatened to – his rambling, episodic style of filmmaking finally curtails the entire project. There are still some excellent scenes which draw a fully-realised set of characters, but the extraneous way that many of the scenes unfold drags a modest plot through to a near three-hour length. I’d happily watch ‘Django’ again for the sporadic touches of stylistic brilliance, its canny genre hybridism, and the large, enterprising performances from the cast, but it mostly showcases its auteur’s difficulty with shaping a narrative rather than his other many attributes. Indulgence and generosity finally get the better of his scribal tendencies, and this Western gets lost in the sprawl.