A difficult watch, but ultimately rewarding

Rating: 7/10 (30 December 2014)

Django Unchained is a Quentin Tarantino film. That is all most people need to know to get them to watch it. Most of us have seen (and probably loved) Pulp Fiction and therefore that's enough to get us to keep watching his films forever in the hope of reliving that classic movie. However, over the years, this eclectic film-maker has dabbled in various different types of film - most of them have been hits and all of them have been hits to someone. Just because you liked his last one, won't mean you'll automatically like his next.
Django Unchained is about a slave (Django) in America - pre Civil War - who is trained up to hunt down and rescue those responsible for abducting and torturing his long-lost wife.
The biggest similarity I can make with this film would be Tarantino's previous outing - Inglorious Bastards. IB was Tarantino's take on World War II and DU is his imagining of the slave trade in the deep south of America. It's a long, rambling epic of a movie, filled with erroneous dialogue and gratuitous violence (not to mention racially offensive language in this case).
It's quite exhausting to watch, but, once you've say through it, you'll hopefully feel that it was worth the journey. Obviously, you'll need a strong stomach. Tarantino is not one to do things by half measures. Expect a LOT of violence and a LOT of bad language.
If you've enjoyed Quentin's previous dark humorous epics then you'll probably like this one. I don't claim to know how factually accurate it is, but it's still a ride-and-a-half anyway.
Note the hilarious - if a little out of place - scene with the lynch mobs discussing their 'wardrobe malfunctions' - classic.