Matthias Schoenaerts steps out of the shadows, tilts his cowboy hat – then tries to fight a tank of a man for cash. From there, this preposterous western only ramps up the bloody chaos
The old saying has it that there are only two types of stories: someone goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. Django has a stranger come to town in classic fashion. This cinematic, sprawling 10-part series is “loosely inspired” by Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 cult spaghetti western of the same name, and it offers a steady take on the genre, which is once again enjoying an on-screen revival.
Django is set in Texas in 1872, seven years after the end of the civil war, though we are reminded, with curious understatement, by a note at the beginning of the first episode that Black people in the south “continued to suffer harsh discrimination and violence”. Django himself (Matthias Schoenaerts, looking like a pre-court appearance Tommy Lee Royce) makes quite the entrance. He emerges from the shadows, looks up from beneath the brow of his tilted cowboy hat and offers to fight a tank of an Austrian man, bare-knuckled, for a substantial cash prize.
