A brilliant, and genuinely important, movie.

Rating: 9/10 (2 September 2013)

The South lost the Civil War but won the peace, with the result that rarely in American cinema -- with a couple of exceptions -- have we seen the full ugliness of slavery put on screen, or the practitioners of that "peculiar institution" used to their full potential as screen villains. As the romanticized South's grip on the American imagination begins to wane, however, possibilities start to open up... and it's great to see Quentin Tarantino be one of the first to exploit them.
Django Unchained of course has a pedigree in both the Spaghetti western genre from whose "Django" it borrows its titular hero's name, and in the "take it to the Man" blaxploitation films of the Seventies, and predecessors in "Southerns" like "Mandingo" -- the bare-knuckles slave-boxing movie whose legacy is present here in the form of "Mandingo fighting," the plausible but not-strictly-historical passion of what at first appears to be the film's main antagonist, Calvin Candie. But Tarantino's influence in the industry means these themes can be treated now with bigger budgets, bigger stars and a far higher profile than they've ever seen before. The results are incredibly satisfying.
First and foremost, Django Unchained is a rollicking western in the "Spaghetti western" style, at its centre the story of an American ex-slave fighting to steal back his wife from the cruel plantation she's been sold to. It isn't concerned with delivering a history lesson, but needs engage in no exaggerations to build an image of the bottomless cruelty of the peculiar institution, and it doesn't flinch a whit from treating its adherents as villains of either the comical or terrifyingly brutal varieties. The action is heightened and yet viscerally believable as only Tarantino can deliver.
Featured in high-powered supporting roles to the excellent Jamie Foxx are Christoph Walz as his mentor, the bounty-hunter and former dentist Dr. King Schultz; and Leonardo di Caprio absolutely relishing his villainous turn as the pretentious and dangerously unstable plantation owner Calvin Candie. And then of course there's Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen, the film's *real* main antagonist and the actual brains running the dread Candyland plantation, a sellout and "house n*gger" extraordinaire who seems to take sadistic delight in his own peoples' suffering and who works with deadly cunning behind his stepinfetchit facade.
I like that the film's principals, even the villains, are fully realized characters: even Stevie is much more than a caricature, there's a genuine affection in his relationship with Calvin Candie and his loyalty, however twisted, to the plantation. It does take a bit of suspension of disbelief to think that whole tracts of the South of that era wouldn't be in flames the moment rumour got around of a free Negro going around the countryside killing white men -- legally or not -- but basically the film does manage to sell its premise reasonably well.
My only real gripe is that the incredible Kerry Washington doesn't get more to do in this film than essentially be the damsel-in-distress object of Django's quest. But the rest of the movie is so exemplary that I can only bring myself to dock it one star for that. Overall: amazing film.