A New Classic for QT

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 2012)

Over the course of his past few films, Tarantino has been sprinkling his Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah influence liberally. With Django, QT gives a balls-out Western with his signature brand of revenge-fantasy that hits closer to home than most Americans would feel comfortable with. And therein lies the true achievement of this film, going where other filmmakers would not and giving us a gut-punch of a film that hearkens back to his devil-may-care attitude he brought with Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.
Django Unchained is the story of Django, a black slave who is recruited by German bounty hunter Schulz into the game of murder-for-hire. After some classic Western guru tutelage, the pair embark on a rescue mission to free Django's wife Broomhilda from the clutches the sadistic dandy Calvin Candie. As per usual with QT, the simple plot is merely the foundation upon which witty dialog, multi-layered characters, outstanding performances, and of course, ultra-violence is stacked to create an epic film that raises pulses as well as a few questions.
Past the controversy about "n-words," racism, how accurately the portrayal of one of America's darkest chapters is, there is a series of questions the film asks of its audience once the cheers, laughter, and uncomfortable squirming have died down. How can one group hold themselves above another so much that they cease to think of them as human? How does a country wage a war against a tyrannical monarchy with the belief that "all are created equal" and then go to treating people as cattle to be sold, whipped, and slaughtered at will? And if you were one of those on the lower rung of that particular power structure, what would you do if, even for one minute, the tables were suddenly flipped? These are issues that are universal, as the human race has had a long history of one group of powerful people subjugating others based on boundaries such as class, religion, or in this case, race.
QT has pretty much been exploring these ideas since Kill Bill. Whether using the Bride as a metaphor for abused women, the Basterds as the victimized Jewish people, or Django as the black American, the Tarantino ensemble serve up a bloody dish of entertainment that can actually serve to enlighten in a way few filmmakers can.