Django

First of all anyone who knows the landscape and climate of Texas can clearly tell from the first shot the set is NOT in Texas. Too many mountain ranges and the climate is way too wet for Texas. They actually filmed this show in Romania. Secondly, the majority of the characters are European with audacious American accents. It's just not believable. Thirdly, the story is so disjointed, it was hard to follow. The writer and director's attempts to modernize a Western failed because the characters just weren't likeable. Because of that the theme of the evils of religious extremism and racism falls flat. Sorry, I only made it to episode 3 and called it quits.

Normally, I'd post a review against the last episode of the season unless I was sure that it's not going to be renewed, but I'm going to post this here as, even if "Django" is brought back for another run - which doesn't look likely - I don't think I'm going to be around for anymore if it. Not everything has to be sunshine and rainbows, but this is too long and too dour to recommend.

Having left his homestead to fight for the South in the Civil war, Django (Matthais Schoenaerts) returns home to find most of his family dead, he believes though that his daughter survived and begins to search for her. 8 years later he locates Sarah (Lisa Vicari), living with John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock) who has founded a free city, New Babylon, on land gifted to him. However, Elizabeth Thurman (Noomi Rapace) wants the land returned to her family, and as a devoutly religious person, to see New Babylon wiped from the map.

So, I quite liked the look for the show, though for an Italian production they generally stayed away from the classic Spaghetti Western style heading to Romania for a grittier, muddier look. New Babylon is clearly filmed in an old mine. I didn't think performances were that bad, Rapace has rather a wayward accent, but we're still in the period of mass migration so it could perhaps be excused on those grounds.

It wasn't a fun watch though. I've never seen the film it's based on (Franco Nero does appear in this series) but the plot is very different from what I read on Wikipedia. This story was too long, it might have worked better as a 90-minute film but at ten hours there were too many half-done storylines and repeated plot points to keep me from drifting away every time I watched it. It's pretty grim stuff too, not that explicit, but with a prevailing sadness particularly if, like me, you guess a pivotal plot point before it comes to the fore.

Again, it's for this reason that I don't think I'd settle in for another series.

I'm from Belgium, so I know Matthias Schoonaerts is a very good actor. However, in this series his acting limits itself to raising his head very slowly while desperately trying to look like a bad ass and making short grunts and growls which I hope weren't in the script.

I'm focussing at Schoonaerts because he played Django, but the other characters in this series perform on the same level. They can do better. I know they can. I recognise most of them from other programs where they did a fine job!

It's not just the acting though. The whole cinematography is a bit off. The footage is either too dark or even a bit too shakey. At first I didn't know what it was I didn't like about it. It's that subtle.

And last but not least: the story. It's just not strong enough to play in the same league as the Django westerns the producers are aiming for.

Pity.

Unbelievably this series is actually getting worse as it goes on, 2 episodes in and it's pretty awful, the accents are all over the place, no 2 people have the same accent, some are so very bad can't even distinguish what they are saying, the plot line is all over the place, just rubbish.there is no Franco Nero Django in this one, this Django can barely act, and there are 10 episodes of this, not entirely sure where it can go really do, unless the 3rd episode is absolutely spectacular im afraid I won't be watching the rest of it. I want to see a remake of the Franco Nero version, nothing fancy no flashing lights, no metaphorical bull just a gritty grimy plot with Django ripping up his machine gun in a coffin. Done. Overall a poor effort. Well 3 episode and god damn man it's just getting more boring, WHERE THE HELL IS THE STORY LINE. Just flicking between scenes and moments in time with no context or continuity, Django is supposed to be this hard core cowboy, he's not even aloud to have his own gun, it's just boring pointless dialogue with no direction, seems to me this is 9 episodes longer than it should have been.

But it's not.

Assuming you have HDR on your TV and you can see what is happening...

The story is convoluted and the flashbacks not handled very well.

The acting is very variable, even by the recognised names.

While the photography is good, it does not make up for the bad acting. Characters performances vary between wooden to manic.

And the accents. Very poor, especially Ms Rapace, most distracting.

The Django character has appeared in several spaghetti westerns over the last fifty years. This series does follow in the established genre but has sacrificed clarity for pretentiousness.

If they make a remake, remember to turn the lights on.