Review: Django Unchained

It can be argued that Quentin Tarantino has already taken on the Spaghetti Western (by his own admission his favorite genre) in "Inglourious Basterds" albeit by a circuitous route as just one part of his strange concoction of war film and revenge. In "Django Unchained," he approaches the Spaghetti Western in a more head on manner and a Quentin Tarantino Spaghetti Western is about exactly what you'd expect one to be. As with most of his films since "Kill Bill" revenge is on the menu, it's served up in a high pressure spray of blood and laughter.

Django, it turns out, is a natural at the bounty hunter game, sharp with the eye and quick with the lead and able to subsume himself into a role as needed to sidle up to his prey, be it a ridiculously dressed valet or a cold hearted black slaver. He and Schultz quickly take to each other as Schultz teaches him the ropes, so much so that when Django tells him the story of his long lost wife the beautiful Broomhilda Von Shaft, Schultz feels honor bound to help him rescue her.
Unfortunately rescuing her means traveling into the belly of Candyland, the Mississippi plantation of one Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the king of the mandingo fight rang.


The performances across the board are high, with Foxx and Waltz enjoying great on screen chemistry. One of the few downsides is Schultz's built-in showmanship often pushing Django to the sidelines, leaving him to shine only when he has the screen to himself.
That said, in a nearly three-hour film there's plenty of opportunity for him to get time to himself, particularly in the last act as he faces off against Candie's various henchman, from gunman Billy Crash (Walton Goggins) to head house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) who truly epitomizes the film and eras' villainy as a black man who accepts slavery as the way things are meant to be and enjoys his place in that hierarchy.

Which is about as preachy as "Django Unchained" gets. Tarantino definitely has a point to make about slavery, and it is there, but it is well hidden behind a stout curtain of fun, which is ultimately what you'll get from "Django." 



Reference

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/criticreviews

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9812057/Django-Unchained-review.html

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/django-unchained