Best of 2010s Cinema: Django Unchained (with a Lone Ranger cameo)
Between 2012 and 2013, there were two high-budget, high-concept Westerns that would strip away at the expectations from the genre and completely flip conventions on its head. One of them would be very successful, and the other one would fail quite miserably. But the one that failed at the box office would nonetheless accomplishes on the one lone element that prevented the other film from achieving cinematic perfection: the climax.
Django Unchained, released in 2012, is easily one of the better films this decade, and the better films in Tarantino’s animated career. Quentin Tarantino’s extreme attention to detail and his incredible ability to combine multiple genres, subplots, themes, and characters into a cohesive albeit unique narrative makes him one of the most unique figures in the history of film, and with one of the biggest cult followings we’ve ever seen. With Django Unchained however, Tarantino gave us a spectacular twist on the typical story concerning slavery and the United States in the mid-1800s.
There’s rap music blasting in the midst of a 19th century setting, monologues about outdated science, a German county hunter, a former slave becoming a bounty hunter and killing slaveowners and supremacists at will, one of the slaves as an actual antagonist, and of course the extreme action that Tarantino is known for. Django Unchained is an unnerving but very engrossing experience that stands out because of its presentation and cinematic delivery. The subverting of the slavery themes is what really gives Django its extra edge.
The best-spoken character and the man that saves our lead slave protagonist isn’t an American, but a German county hunter. Django, played by Jamie Foxx, actually speaks and behaves better than the slaveowners themselves, which is a flip on the clichés back in the day. Django’s wardrobe is even unlike that of other slavery-based films, as he pops in heavy stylish purple as opposed to the usual drag and dreary colors of the oppressed’s clothing. An excellent cast and an excellent screenplay drives this forward, filling the screen with humor, action, and overbearing tension, especially once we approach the final act.
Django Unchained would be lauded for its creativity and entertainment, even though the language caused some controversy and some of the most violent scenes ruffled some feathers.
The Lone Ranger on the other hand, would also be controversial over its violence and certain decisions, and would fail miserably at the box office.
This movie is quite a mess, and that’s with its amazing efforts to subvert the genre and expectations and give us the twist about how the Native Americans aren’t obstacles but actually the victims of the Wild West. The movie has many faults, but deserves so much respect for giving Native Americans a much stronger preference in a western, a blockbuster western at that. But there’s the heart-eating scene, the psychotic rabbits, the rated-R content that was somehow edited into a PG-13 Disney flick, the fact that the hero doesn’t get to shine until the very end, and just a convoluted plot with multiple villains that were never in the same frame until…the very end.
Lone Ranger’s biggest fault lies in the script, which was a mess and needed at least 40 pages of slicing. It had all the right ideas, had the makings of a decent origin story that could have led to sequels if the original had not cost Disney dozens of millions of dollars, but it did not execute. It happens, sometimes you miss. Even Marvel had its misses, I’m looking at you Age of Ultron. It fascinates me because it came out less than a year after Django Unchained, and both had very similar goals in rewriting the typical western tropes and creating a western with a unique feel. The legacies of both films could not be more wildly different however, same with their box office results.
But The Lone Ranger features one of the greatest climactic scenes in the history of film, and none of this is an exaggeration. The dual-train chase sequence is action-packed perfection, and there was so much insanity that it nearly fully made up for the previous 120 minutes. It starts off with the William Tell Overture, now we have trains weaving through multiple tracks, shootouts, jumps from train to train, the Lone Ranger on horseback chasing the damsel in distress, Tonto chasing after the silver, and just so much carnage all leading up to a bridge that actually was destroyed hours earlier. It was over 10 minutes of mayhem, of the subplots and main plots being wrapped up, and the two protagonists having their final moments with the two antagonists. All of it is brilliant, and Verbinski is one of just a handful of directors that can accomplish what transpired.
Django Unchained had the perfect climax, and if the film had lasted another 5-10 minutes after that it would have been perfect. But…the movie went on another half an hour, thus becoming the lone fault of what was otherwise an excellent addition to the genre of westerns.
Towards the end and just as they are about to leave Candyland, Django engages in a furious shootout against everyone after his mentor and partner Dr. Schultz shockingly kills Calvin, igniting the conflict. What follows is a wild five-minute sequence full of gunplay, blood, death, carnage, and entertaining chaos. Django’s skills he accumulated throughout the past year comes into full play as he uses other bodies as shields, accurately takes out person after person, and the only reason why he didn’t win was because the numbers kept piling up and he was out of bullets. Eventually he is imprisoned, sold, he escapes, and has his revenge, which added another half an hour to the already-lengthy film.
But what if the climax was him ultimately surviving the shootout and escaping with Broomhilda towards an uncertain future, but at least with a future involving his beloved wife? What if he was able to kill Stephen in a final tense standoff and take off towards the darkness a fully free man? I feel like that would have been the perfect release of tension that had been building for a good 25 minutes, and would have emphasized the point about the dangers of being a black man in America, but would also cap the love story as Django finally reunites with his wife and they finally get to leave together. The ending worked, but it took too long to arrive.
So Django Unchained and Lone Ranger have very different legacies but nonetheless accomplished what each film set out to do: completely shake up the western genre and offer a different vision of the concept of the Wild Wild West. Verbinski’s career is chock full of western homages, from At World’s End to the criminally underrated Rango to what is easily his least-successful film The Lone Ranger. But his film nonetheless has the one thing Django Unchained so desperately needed: a great climax and resolution. Despite their flaws, both are enjoyable films that respect their genre before giving it a complete makeover, and both left their mark on this decade of filmmaking.