A violent western set in the Antebellum South

Rating: 9/10 (29 November 2017)

As this Tarantino western opens Dr King Schultz approaches two man transporting slaves through Texas; he is a bounty hunter and one of the slaves can identify the men he his hunting. That slave is Django. Schultz tells Django that when the men are dead he will be a free man. Once he is freed they start working together collecting bounties before heading to Mississippi where Django's wife is a slave on an infamously brutal plantation. They intend to buy her freedom but must keep their intentions from slave owner Calvin Candie or he is likely to refuse just because he can. Once at the Candyland plantation house slave Stephen proves to be their greatest danger.
Anybody who has seen any of Quentin Tarantino's previous films will be unsurprised that his is quite violent at times. The story is well told with likable protagonists and some very unpleasant antagonists. The setting, earlier and further east than most westerns, doesn't flinch from depicting the horrors of slavery and attitudes that mean people expect the highest of manners but think is is perfectly acceptable to order a runaway slave be torn apart by dogs. The cast does a fine job; Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz work together brilliantly as Django and Schultz and Leonardo DiCaprio is great as the racist Candie. Samuel L Jackson also impresses as Stephen; he is possibly the film's most disturbing character, a slave who despises and betrays other black people. Given the subject matter one might not expect much to laugh at but there are a few really funny moments; the best being when a hooded lynch mob start complaining that they can't see properly with their hoods onÂ… it was almost like something one might have expected in 'Blazing Saddles'. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of other Tarantino's films or fans of the genre who aren't put off by the level of violence.