Django Unchained - FILM REVIEW
by
Rocky Miavia
Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino's latest film about a freed slave who becomes a bounty hunter in hopes of freeing this enslaved wife. The film is set in 1858. As with most Tarantino films expect blood, gore, great dialogue, iconic characters, and Samuel L. Jackson to pop up somewhere.
Django Unchained has a powerhouse cast of actors driving this film to greatness. Samuel L. Jackson did the damn thing as the Uncle Ruckus-like Mr. Steven. I swear this dude must've studied episodes of that character from The Boondocks to prepare for his role. Jamie Foxx starts out the film very low key, but his character flourishes about mid way into the storyline when he takes up bounty hunting with Waltz. Kerry Washington is fine as fuck (never gave her a second look till now). She did a very good job of using her eyes to convey the range of emotions her character went through. Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Calvin Candie, was an intriguing character in that he had a level of complexity unexpected for the role of a plantation slave owner and mandingo fight manager. Christoph Waltz, who played Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds, stole the show once again as Django's mentor/partner. It was almost like Waltz was playing a good version of Hans Landa in the wild west. Seriously, has this guy won any awards in the past because he's overdue. Also notable are performances by Walton Goggins (Shane from The Shield), a KKK cameo from comedian Jonah Hill, and the enigmatic Don Johnson as a slave owner named Big Daddy.
The film was bloody, unforgiving, funny at times, and highly entertaining. Tarantino's combination of western and slavery period picture is a strange mixture that works. Slaves in this film were not portrayed as dumb and inhuman. In fact, the humanity of the slaves was portrayed many times in contrast to the inhumanity of the white characters in this film. The film truly shows the evil of whites back then and the despair of slaves who are being forced to do things they know to be wrong. Once again, these actors like Kerry Washington did a good job of conveying emotion with their eyes during some of the horrible acts committed here. And yes, the N-word was used frequently for both identifying blacks and some comic value. Now I know BGOL's e-militants have been on this Spike Lee bullshit in reference to this. Guess what? This is a PERIOD FILM set in 1858. WTF do you expect whites to refer to us as back then? It's a horrible reality, but one you should be ashamed of to help continue IF you use the word yourself today.
Django's path of revenge, recovery, and redemption is an overly long, hyper violent ride but worth the stay. That said, the film is about 20-25 minutes too long. Not in the way most Tarantino films are though. There's not a lot of wasted dialogue and scenes of people doing casual stuff on screen as in most of Tarantino's films. It was just that the final act, while action packed, seemed to do something extra to prolong the end game. Seriously, people in the theater started looking at their watches like "WTF?" when the movie seemed ready to end but didn't. The ending, when it came, was VERY satisfying and I think most of BGOL will be pleased with it. So yes, Tarantino can do westerns too. This guy has touched on a lot of film genres successfully. What's next, sci-fi? Hard to say, but one thing I do know is Django Unchained was well worth my ticket price and time tonight thanks to strong performances from talented actors and seeing a black man get paid for killing white folks. Peace!
For a second opinion check out the scores at Rotten Tomatoes -
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/django_unchained_2012
...nuff said
Quentin did his thing with this movie. He actually cut out a lot of offensive scenes I read in the script. This was pretty much a straight forward action sphagetti western. I was clapping cheering and shouting with the rest of the theater goers. 
