Failed to meet our expectations, and that's a good thing.

Rating: 8/10 (3 May 2013)

Wife and I had no intentions of ever watching this movie; on paper it just had way to many strikes going against it. Never been a big fan of Tranantino's work save Pulp Fiction, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio personal philosophies and activism are so wretched the presence of any one of them in a film essentially guarantees we won't pay to see it and their combined presence in a film centered on the subject of slavery seemed a sure recipe for an over the top hate fest ... but friends had the Bluray waiting to go back in the mail and insisted we watch it with them.
As one would expect the film has Tarantino's bloods soaked hoof prints all over it, but not nearly as gratuitously so as say, Reservoir Dogs, and beyond the obvious matter of slavery the story is built upon the politics is pretty much checked at the door.
What's most interesting about about Django Unchained is that while IMDb lists this as Action/Crime/Drama which is pretty much the genre I was expecting, this is also one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long while. Having written several reviews lambasting the preponderance of hate-filled garbage Hollywood has been trying to pass of as humor and comedy the past decade or so, it was more than a little refreshing to see some of the most hilarious, no doubt some will say politically incorrect, bits on the screen in what seems like ages. It's even more impressive that it's all done within the context of such a heavy, dark and violent story.
If you've avoided seeing it because you thought you knew what it was or what to expect based on what you've read from the "professional" reviews you might want rethink that. We avoided it based on what we'd heard and read and thought we knew what expect and we couldn't have been more misled or wrong.
The few knocks against it might be that it's about 20 to 30 minutes longer than it needed to be and the transition to the final act is a bumpy and tortured but enough to diminish the overall experience.