Another win for Quentin!

Rating: 8/10 (19 February 2013)

Quentin Tarantino creates another effective and popular film with his unconventional twist on historical events with the release of, Django Unchained. The style from his Nazi Germany film, Inglorious Bastards, pours right into Django Unchained. Only this time, he seems to kick it up a notch with an over the top, western-type violence filled spectacle where race is enticed and blood is spilled- both in very excessive amounts. Django Unchained is an envelope pushing masterpiece- with it's overdone exploitation of racial inequalities and amazing dialogue, while adding random spurts of humor.
This begins almost immediately with close-up shots of the whip-marked backs of a chain gang of slaves being marched across Texas. Among them is Django (Jamie Foxx), whose fate soon changes with the arrival of Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz), a German dentist turned merciless bounty hunter who promises Django's freedom to help him track down three plantation foremen whose identities he needs Django(who has suffered at their hands)to confirm.
On their journey, Tarantino really hammers home the western twist with bullets flying, explosives, and the old typical western-color camera scenes and noises. Tarantino overuses the "n-word," but this film portrayed it very effective due to the taboo of the word and unexpectedness. During their adventures, Schultz learns Django's wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) is owned by ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose favorite hobby is "Mandingo fighting" -watching slaves fight to the death for sport. Knowing Candie won't just give up Broomhilda, the two head to the typical giant southern plantation, Candyland. Their plan soon unfolds into a bloodbath fight with a funny dramatization of a guy that Django uses as a human shield who just won't die.
The acting was nothing short of amazing. His cast keeps an eye on Tarantino's smooth dialogue approach. Foxx is terrific in a role requiring brawn and brains, rank and humor. The exceptional Waltz, wearing a Texas-sized beard, cleverly rolls his accent around Tarantino's dialogue perfectly. DiCaprio is as evenly strong as a stylish fiend whose repulsive features include a boyish enthusiasm for evil. Samuel L. Jackson has an even more daring role: Candie's obedient butler/servant, who listens as Candie holds a dead slave's skull and rambles on about a slave's small mental capacity, then sips brandy with him, a complete participant in the inhumanity.
Is Tarantino telling us much about slavery that we don't know? I think his message is bigger than that. He's pushing the film industry to places it has never been. There is no way a viewer could walk out of Django Unchained and not feel something: anger, outrage, amusement, satisfaction. I am excited to see where Quentin goes from here.