Vintage Tarantino and one of the best of 2012

Rating: 9/10 (5 January 2013)

In the American South and a few years before the Civil War, Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave who falls in with a fellow slave Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). His owners punish him by tearing them apart and selling him to new owners. On his way to his new plantation, he is rescued by a bounty hunter named Dr. Schultz (Christoff Waltz) who enlists him to find some criminals he's been hunting who happen to be Django's previous owners. Together they begin to work together to hunt down, kill criminals and collect bounties before reuniting Django with Broomhilda. But before they can be reunited, they must outwit her owner Calvin Candie, the owner of the infamous Candieland plantation. This was vintage Tarantino; violent, bloody, very funny with witty dialogue and entertaining action scenes absurdly gory to the point of laughter. From top to bottom, the acting is this movie is superb to say this least; there isn't a weak performance in the entire film and it's worthy of the awards buzz it's been getting; the acting takes this film to another level.
Dicaprio is solid as the repulsive slave owner. Foxx nails the comedic and action parts of his role. However the stand out performances here are Christoff Waltz and Sam Jackson. Is there a better actor right now more perfect for dialogue driven characters than Christoff? I can'think of one. Whether it's Inglorious Basterds, Carnage or this film, there's no question he's one of the best in these kind of roles at the moment. The irony of a German helping Django exact revenge was not lost of me and made his scenes that much more entertaining. And Sam Jackson did what Sam Jackson does; he's nothing short of brilliant in this film as the trusted house slave. He steals every single scene he's in and is hilarious. I really hope there's some awards for both him and Christoff as they are both very deserving. While Kerry Washington role is mostly reserved for screaming, crying or looking pretty (and she does that quite well), she did have a few strong moments as her experiences as a slave will make you skin crawl as she was really convincing in those scenes.
Django Unchained is much longer than your typical comedy and does drag on a little. While some scenes could've definitely been tightened or even cut, the pacing was still very good (at no point did I look at my watch or was bored like The Hobbit). I was definitely engaged throughout. The soundtrack was pretty good; it had a good mix of traditional western and modern ballads mixed in.
Tarantino's aim for the film seemed to be two fold; first in mocking the incredibly backwards and hateful racism of the era. This is evident in numerous, hilarious scenes: the reaction of every single white person seeing Django on a horse, the Klan having some issues with wardrobe before heading out on a raid and a Django being allowed to stay in the same house as plantations family (this is one of the scenes Jackson steals and may very well be the funniest scene of the year). And secondly, by not beating around the bush and capturing head on the horror of the era so we don't forget. There are scenes that are jolting and very uncomfortable, ala Amistad or Glory. Even though this is mostly a comedy, you do have to prep yourself for some of these scenes as you may not expect them (I didn't). Even with the subject matter, I was surprised by them as I didn't prep myself (so be warned).
Kudos to Tarantino for not holding back in this aspect, as uncomfortable as it was, it's important not to trivialize this era and he made sure of that. The film was very interesting in that some times you go from laughing at the absurdity of it in some scenes to feeling the paint of what it was to go through this kind of thing in the very next scene. It's a very thin line between satirical humour and drama with this kind of subject and Tarantino walks it brilliantly. It's pretty clear to me if Tarantino wanted to make a full on slavery era drama (or any pure drama for that matter) he could and it would be profoundly effective; but that's just not his style. With this film and Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino seems to want to right some of histories wrongs in his own gory and humorous way; I'm very excited to see what he comes up with next.
So all in all an expertly acted film with great humour that doesn't sugar coat this American era. It's not to be missed and is one of the best movies of 2012.
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