Well cast and executed Tarantino movie with little innovation

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2013)

It's a good movie, simple as that, and it definitely ranks up there with Tarantino's best works, and there is not much point in delving too deep into the plot, since it's both predictable and conventional in any aspect imaginable. And that's one of my biggest complaints with this movie. Sure, if you watch a Tarantino flick, you don't exactly expect a brilliant story per se, but rather want to see how it is told with over the top scenes and larger than life characters, and in this regard, the movie delivers. He gave the usual buddy-theme and "damsel in distress"-theme an interesting twist with the whole slavery and bounty-hunting affair, but overall, it's nothing you haven't seen before. While Christoph Waltz does an outstanding job in portraying the German dentist-turned-bountyhunter Dr. King Schulz as a likable, prosaic and delightfully uninvolved anti-hero - after all, his job is killing people -, you can't help but feel he essentially just reprises his role from Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds", only as a "good guy" this time. There is nothing wrong with that, as it worked favourably both for Waltz and the movie itself, but innovative, this is not. DiCaprio, as well, is just deliciously unlikable as the movie's antagonist, and he's about the only refreshing part in it, as you rarely see him performing bad guys. Alas, I was a little disappointed in the role of Django. Not Foxx's performance, but the whole character seems shallow and you can't help but feel it could have been played equally well by any African-American actor. Not saying Foxx didn't give Django his own defining touches, but he just didn't have much to work with. In conclusion, the movie is a 9 out of 10. I substract one point for the usual Tarantinoism when it comes to violence. I know that it is his trademark, and I'm fine with the way he just completely overuses blood and gore during fire-fights, because there, it at least serves a purpose of enhancing the brutality of it, even though I don't like it. What I truly detest is when it's just there for shocks and shows, as it doesn't serve any other purpose other than being offensive (I'm referring to the eye-gouging scene during the Mandingo-fight) and disgusting, and for that, I have very little understanding. This and the reason that Tarantino himself hat a small cameo that was acted out plain HORRIBLE - seriously, if you can't do a southern accent, don't try to fake it - cost this movie a whole point, leaving it at a still good 8/10.