Instant cult film

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2013)

So, Tarantino decided to make a western movie, as he is a big fan of them. Not only that he decided to make one, he decided to make a very good one with a relatively typical spaghetti western story but, to put it mildly, not typical characters and locations. So Django Unchained takes place at the South of the USA (so-called Deep South) a few years before the Civil War and the main protagonists are German bounty hunter and a black slave who quickly becomes a black cowboy. A former dentist, now a headhunter, Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz) decides to buy a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) to help him in finding three brothers for whom an arrest warrant has been issued. Thing is that Schultz does not know how they look while Django do. If he successfully complete the task Django is promised to get his freedom but Schultz was thrilled with Django as a headhunter so he offered him a partnership and help in saving his wife from cruel slaver Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
Django Unchained is more or less what the majority of the audience expected. While it is legitimate to criticize Tarantinos stylistic and filming constant throughout his career the fact is that he creates high-quality films that meets with mostly positive response among the audience. Also stylistic and filming repetitiveness is belaud characteristic of many other acclaimed filmmakers (the Coen brothers, Carpetner...) so there is no reason to be harsh with Tarantino for that. Django Unchained is primarily entertainment, then a brutal display of the first half of the 19th century in USA, and ultimately the criticism of human morality. Often mentioned violence is pervasive and somewhat glorified, but no more than in average action film.
Acting is on extremely high level, which was also directly contributed by writing the script for specific actors. Thus, for instance, Dr. Schultz, Candie and Stephen were written directly for Waltz, DiCaprio and Jackson, while Django was written with Will Smith in mind. Jamie Foxx is definitely the weakest among main cast, although far from being bad his acting is definitely forgetful while previously enumerated trio is far away from being forgetful. Christoph Waltz is simply brilliant in the role of Dr. Schultz, which deviates slightly from Hans Landa and although many will find problem of repetitiveness in that, that should be ignored due to the success of the character and Waltzs performance. DiCaprio is excellent in his first role as a villain. He was so into it that when he really accidentally hit a glass with his fist and despite sizable bleeding never went out of the character. Samuel L. Jackson is also excellent in the role peevish old man with plenty of swearing and yelling.
It looks like Tarantino wanted to have as much people as it was possible to participate in this movie, so we have a bunch of supporting characters, most of which was a cameo or almost a cameo role and most of them end up serving as cannon fodder. Even Franco Nero, the original Django, appears in the film and there were written roles for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Sacha Baron Cohen and Michael Kenneth Williams which were ultimately thrown out of the film as the trio couldn't participate in project.
The dialogues are wonderfully worked out, with many lines that will become cult. The disadvantage is the unnecessarily lengthiness of the film itself and many completely unnecessary scenes. Some of these unnecessary scenes that serve the purpose of comedy like the one with hoods are not the problem, but the vast majority of others are, specially in the last half of hour. Editing is also obvious worse than in previous Tarantino films which were edited by, now late, Sally Menke. Soundtrack is particularly interesting. Giuseppe Verdi, Ennio Morricone and James Brown/2Pac duet (which unlike Rick Ross is interesting musical experiment) as a music background in few almost connected scenes is really special experience.
Tarantino continues as usual, and while some will be happy with it, others will not, but the fact is that Django Unchained is instant cult film which in addition is well made and which characters will be quoted and scenes will be endlessly viewed.