certainly delivers on its promise

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2013)

Tarantino is back at it again, taking his talents to another genre and presenting this bold, brutal, and unconventional 'western' set in the Deep South during the late 1850s. Django is a man on a missionâ€”a freed slave who forms an unlikely alliance with a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter as he goes on a daring trek through various slave plantations to try and rescue his wife from the clutches of a cruel, eccentric Francophile. Combination western, buddy movie, and action-thriller, it delivers what you'd expect with searing action scenes, appropriately incendiary dialogue, and larger-than-life characters, all presented in an anything but straightforward manner. Takes much too long to get where it's going, and has a third act that runs on violent overdrive, but like most of the director's previous efforts it's memorable and well-acted. Foxx is well-cast as the titular character, Waltz matches him as the secondary one, and DiCaprio has an especially meaty role as the vile antagonist, but no one shines more than Jackson who creates one of his most memorable characters to date. Odd, outrageous, and unsettling, but wildly good fun. ***