Trailer Trashin’: Tarantino’s Django Unchained Looks Off the Hook

As I said last week, the summer is a time when movie studios start promoting their big films and Oscar hopefuls that are coming out in the fall and winter. And just like last time, this week’s installment of Trailer Trashin’ is looking at a promising December release – Django Unchained, the new film from writer/director Quentin Tarantino.

Premise: Django (Jamie Foxx), a freed slave, treks across America with Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter. Together, they set out to hunt down a band of killers and rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the charming but sadistic Mississippi plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his group of ruthless slavers.

My take: I’m sorry to say that I was late to the party about Quentin Tarantino. I was way too young to see his early films when they came out, and as I got older, I wasn’t interested in seeing them. That finally changed in September 2009, when one Friday evening I went to the movie theater near my college and saw Inglourious Basterds – and loved it. Since then, I’ve checked out some of his earlier films, which I’ve also enjoyed, and I pay attention when news comes around about what he’s doing next. When I heard that his next film, Django Unchained, would be an anti-slavery revenge western (or “southern,” to use the director’s own words), I thought it sounded cool. Now the first trailer for the film is here, and it looks like we’ve got another awesome, memorable Tarantino film coming our way.

As is the case with pretty much every Tarantino film, the cast of Django Unchained is really impressive. I haven’t seen a lot of Jamie Foxx’s work, but he’s a good actor and I’m interested to see what he does in a role that’s so different from what he’s done before. Leonardo DiCaprio looks like he’ll be appropriately slimy as the evil Calvin Candie, and it’s nice to see him playing a villain, which I don’t think he’s done since The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) – if I’m forgetting something, please mention it in the comments. I’m also happy to see Christoph Waltz – best known as Colonel Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa in Inglourious Basterds – playing Django’s friend/mentor Dr. King Schultz. Since most of Waltz’s post-Basterds work has been playing villains, it’s nice to see him doing something completely different. I was surprised by how little we see of Kerry Washington as Broomhilda, Django’s wife. I just hope she has a decent amount of stuff to do in the actual movie. There are a lot of people in the cast who don’t appear here that I can’t wait to see, including Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, Tom Savini, James Remar, and Walton Goggins. Hopefully, we’ll get some looks at them in future trailers. And on a nice, slightly meta note, the older bearded man sitting next to Django at the bar in the last scene is Franco Nero, the Italian actor who played the title character in the original spaghetti western Django (1966), which was one of Tarantino’s inspirations for this film.

All the expected elements of Tarantino’s films are on display here. We’ve got the quirky, memorable dialogue. King Schultz’s “Good cold evening, gentlemen” and Calvin Candie’s “Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. But now you have my attention” already seem to be quite popular with the online community (and me). We’ve got the usual scenes of violence, and it looks like we can expect Old West shootouts aplenty. In particular, I have to mention the both beautiful and disturbing shot of blood splattering on a field of cotton plants. And we’ve got the great juxtaposition between the dark subject matter and all these weird, oddball characters. So yeah, color me happy.

But as cool as all this stuff looks, there are a couple things I’m not crazy about. I feel kind of bothered by the fact that after Schultz saves Django from the slave caravan, he apparently doesn’t free Django right away, instead making Django’s freedom contingent on him helping Schultz find the Brittle Brothers. I’m sure Tarantino has a reason for doing it this way, but I just think it feels wrong for one of the heroes to basically say “yeah I rescued you, but you’re still a slave until you do something for me.” Does anyone else feel this way, or am I totally over thinking a very minor point? I also find the seeming lack of significant female characters in the film puzzling. Tarantino’s past films have had some really great, memorable women in them – such as The Bride (Uma Thurman) in Kill Bill (2003, 2004), Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) in Inglourious Basterds, and Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) from, well, Jackie Brown (1997) – so the absence of those kind of characters here stands out.

But those issues aside, I still think this looks like it could be a really good film. Quentin Tarantino hasn’t let me down yet, and I don’t feel like he’s going to drop the ball here. If all the festive joy and happiness gets to be too much for me this Christmas, I’ll be at my local movie theater checking out Django Unchained.

ANTICIPATION: It’s definitely not for everyone, but I can’t wait to see it.

Release Date: December 25th, 2012

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Laura Cayouette, Dennis Christopher, Don Johnson, M.C. Gainey, Tom Savini, Anthony LaPaglia, James Remar, Walton Goggins, Tom Wopat, Misty Upham, RZA, Michael Bacall, Franco Nero, and Sharon Pierre-Louis
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino

P.S. When I was deciding on the movie for this week’s column, it came down to a choice between Django Unchained and Wreck-It Ralph (which I also think looks like it could be a lot of fun). That should give you some idea of how weird and eclectic my taste in movies can be. I’m a huge gamer, and this film looks like it could be to classic video games what Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) was to classic cartoons. I can’t wait.

P.P.S. I am so geeked that Marvel Studios might finally be making a Black Panther movie. He’s a great character, he has a ton of cinematic potential, and he’d make a great addition to the lineup of the Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.