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Tarantino… Now He Should Be Chained

Let me begin with the only thing I have ever liked that Quentin Tarantino had anything to do with was “From Dusk Till Dawn” in which he played the mentally challenged deviant brother of George Clooney. I have never watched Pulp Fiction in it’s entirety, Reservoir Dogs no interest, and Jackie Brown was not impressive. Suffice to say I am not particularly impressed with Quentin Tarantino’s work.

Which brings us to Django Unchained. I heard so much clamor about this film. A really good friend suggested and encouraged me to see it. My friend thinks I am quite the rebel, for some odd reason, and thought sure I would love this movie. Anyway it came and went from the theaters. I finally picked it up at my local “RedBox” about a week or two ago. The main reason I resisted seeing the movie was the association with Mr. Tarantino.

I won’t say I hated the film, but when I saw Jamie Fox in the blue “Little Lord Fauntleroy” get-up I was lost forever. I tried to watch it but it was so corny and campy I found myself falling asleep. I faded in and out of consciousness, mostly because I was watching it in bed after a long day at work.  What I did see of it made me say,” It’s a Tarantino movie what did you expect?” I fully intended to rip this film to shreds when I started this piece. However, because I was going to rip the film and Quentin apart I said, ” To do YOUR work justice, YOU must actually watch the movie”. Off to RedBox I went to rent Django Unchained for a second time.

My son asked me what are you going to do, and wouldn’t it be funny if you ended up liking the movie. I laughed it off with, “It’s a Tarantino movie that’s not gonna happen”. Well as I take my first bite of crow, let me say I have to admit I enjoyed it. After I put aside my preconceived notions about Quentin, I was able to see the interesting twist on his film. It had all the flavor of a 1970’s western/black exploitation film the underlying influence. I do not like the way Tarantino pays homage to black films nor the arrogance of him suggesting he has an inside track to understanding black people and their portrayal in film. The “n” word is used entirely too much in most of his work; at last here was a film that it truly could go virtually unnoticed and it was. He did a good job with this movie, I was  thoroughly entertained.

It was not predictable in obvious ways. There is a great deal of blood and violence, along with animated showmanship. The characters were both interesting and unbelievable. Samuel L. Jackson was, however, brilliant as Stephen your “Uncle Tom” prototype. I would watch it again just to see him. IT is mindless entertainment and every-so-often we need to slip ourselves a small dose of just that. I give Quentin a “stay of execution” because of Django Unchained, I am sure there will be other films in the future that will allow me to confirm my opinion of him and his work prior to Django. However, until that time I have to give credit to him for scoring and scoring in a rather big way with me on this particular project.

My changed opinion made me have to ponder renaming my piece, or to at least search for a new title and note I did as much here at the end. Having to find a suitable title after the fact was just hard, and my heart wasn’t in it. I mean it was enough to admit the film wasn’t the horror I fully expected, but to have to change the title to possibly say something else positive about Quentin.. well it was just out of the question. My entire opinion of him has not changed, I just had to be honest about this particular work of his. If you manage to read through the entire piece, you will get the reasoning behind the title and you will also know why the title change did NOT take place. “Jury is still out” regarding the man and his overall talent. Therefore, even in spite of the fact he did produce something I liked, his overall record still leaves a great deal to be desired, and it is because of that I still say he(Tarantino) should be “chained“(restricted).