For once the black guy doesn't die!

Rating: 8/10 (20 March 2013)

QT rewrote history in Inglourious Basterds to give Jews some poetic justice, and now he empowers the black male with a Western that presents the horrors of slavery whilst still being a rootin', tootin' revenge flick that ranks with his best.
As the titular protagonist, Jamie Foxx is appropriately subdued as the freed slave, who strategically accepts Dr King Shultz's offer of a bounty-hunting partnership in order to buy his wife from sadistic plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). He doesn't have a lot to do other than represent black oppression, which he does by – well, being black.
The role of Shultz required a German, so Christoph Waltz was the obvious choice. He is unquestionably brilliant, as he was in Inglourious, and though he's not playing a Nazi this time, you get the sense that he's Col. Landa's saintly twin. It's touching that he helps Django because he views him as Siegfried in the famous German myth: a man who goes through hellfire to rescue his beloved (a tender, affecting Kerry Washington), who completes the myth by having the name Broomhilda von Shaft.
DiCaprio is the film's biggest surprise. He had serious misgivings about playing Candy, his first (and possibly last) out and out villain. What will audiences think when they see him give the order for a runaway slave to be ripped apart by wild dogs? QT warned him to go all the way, otherwise audiences wouldn't forgive him; a very apt directive, which DiCaprio has firmly adhered to. His superb performance comes almost entirely from his character's pomposity. QT describes him wonderfully as the petulant boy king, the Louis XIV who is so bored with his inheritance (the fourth largest cotton plantation in Mississippi) that he gets his kicks from brutal Mandingo fights.
QT's dialogue is, as always, sensational. Lyrical, eloquent, witty, playful, ingenious – that's always been his most impressive contribution to cinema. This is the least QT-looking film of his repertoire, but only because this is his most conventional (or least unconventional). A Western, as this is, has fixed associations and images. QT is careful not to impose his knack of creatively subverting genre (too much) to detract from the serious message which he clearly wishes to make.
For all the flak QT gets for his approval of cinematic violence, I don't think this is a particularly violent film. We're talking here of the antebellum South, two years before the Civil war. It would be an injustice not to show violence, and an even bigger injustice not to show a true depiction of violence. In fact, the implied violence (Django hanging upside down, waiting to be castrated) is more unsettling than the comic book violence we mostly get.
QT wanted to avoid making this a historical film with a capital 'H'. To do so, he said, would have defeated the purpose. Samuel L. Jackson's character, Stephen, exists to prove this. He runs 'Candyland' (superb writing) as proxy lord of the manor, but resents any other free black. He treats his house slaves with a deeper contempt than Candy would, perhaps because it's a way of assuring his own longevity. He's more grotesque than Candy and would be a memorable villain if he didn't make us laugh so much with his bespoke jive.
The soundtrack is terrific and the pacing is astonishing considering the 165-minute length. Some of the influence from Sergio Leone Westerns has found its way into this film. Is this one of QT's best? No. Should you see it? You must. QT has made his political points loud and clear; he's got us all talking about America's forgotten holocaust. But has he given cinema the mythical black hero he intended to?