A truly fantastic movie

Rating: 10/10 (13 March 2013)

Some of the bad reviews here are completely misleading and just plain wrong. What really frustrates me is when these reviews get voted up. Sucks that I can only vote once on a review. For example, there's this one person who said that the movie was so bad he actually chuckled through most of it. An example of how "bad" it was he mentioned the scene with the poorly done bags and said that the men had a 10 minute dialog! 10 minutes?! Way to mislead people who haven't seen this great film, that's not what happened! This awesome and hilarious scene was between 2 to 3 minutes. Also, what makes you think that reviewers "have a case of Tarantinoism" and blindly approve of what he does? Here's another bad "review" that made me mad. The reviewer said that the best part of the film is when the "screen went dark and the words THE END appeared". Is this guy trolling or something? THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED!! The screen stayed as it is and the first thing that popped up was "Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino".
Update: These two reviews are now gone.
Now for the review. Django Unchained, in my opinion, is the best film Tarantino has ever done. It's gory, hilarious, and so entertaining that words can't describe it. He explored the serious issue of slavery and at the same time incorporated his signature style, well done!
The story: Django and his wife Broomhilda attempt to run away from the plantation they are enslaved at. As punishment, they were sold at the Greenville slave auction separately. Django was sold to a pair of slave traders called the Speck Brothers. Then along comes a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz. He tracks down and frees Django because Django is the only one who can identify a trio of wanted outlaws called the Brittle Brothers, who were formerly overseers at the plantation where he was enslaved. In exchange for helping to find and kill the Brittle Brothers, Schultz would give Django his freedom, a third of the money earned from killing them, and help him find and free Broomhilda. The two partner up for the winter and get a good amount of money from bounty hunting. After the winter is over, they find out that Calvin Candie, an evil plantation owner, is the one who bought Broomhilda. Calvin Candie owns a plantation called Candyland, which is known to have slaves fighting each other to the death, something called Mandingo fighting. Schultz and Django then devise an elaborate plan to buy her. I like how the story is told in a linear fashion, deviating from Tarantino's typical telling of a story in chapters. It just flowed so smoothly. My only problem was that the last 20 minutes were a little messy. But everything else is done so well that I can forgive that.
In Django Unchained we do get a fine dose of Tarantino's amusing cartoon-like blood and gore, but there is also a good deal of violence here that is unpleasant and very disturbing. Being fed to vicious dogs, Mandingo fighting, suffering in a hot box and brutal whippings are no joke. These scenes are not there for our amusement, they're there to show everyone the horrors of the slavery era.
Honestly, I don't think this film moves at a slow pace at all. For a film that's 2 hours and 45 minutes, it sure felt short. An appropriate amount of time was spent developing the characters and as usual we are treated to some amazing, extremely well written, interesting, and witty dialogs. The dinner table scene is almost 25 minutes long, but honestly it only feels like five. Even for those who aren't fans of talky films and haven't seen this, I'm sure that they will be entertained by what Tarantino has to offer here. Django turned from a timid slave into a gunslinging badass, and as events go by in the film we get to see that while Schultz is a lovable badass bounty hunter who enjoys killing evil people and getting himself into tight situations, he has emotions and unfortunately they get the better of him. As the film goes on Calvin Candie reveals his monstrous traits. Honestly, I wish the film was even longer so that Broomhilda could be developed further and maybe know more about her and Django's marriage.
Acting wise, this movie is top notch. All the actors just vanish into their roles. Christoph Waltz was amazing as the German bounty hunter Schultz and totally deserved his Oscar. Schultz had the same accent and mannerisms of Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds, but Schultz is a more lovable character on the right side of the law. Leonardo DiCaprio was simply outstanding as Calvin Candie and I was totally disappointed and shocked that he didn't even get nominated for an Oscar. Despite the horrible things that Calvin does, he is such an entertaining character. How is such a monster like Calvin Candie so fun? Well, you need the right script and the right actor for the job, and with Tarantino doing the writing and Leo doing the acting, what we get is absolute gold. No, not gold, platinum. Samuel L. Jackson really stands out as Calvin Candie's head slave, an Uncle Tom called Stephen. He was hilarious and also quite scary. As you watch the film, you will know that he is actually more evil and despicable than Calvin Candie. Sucks that Jackson got almost zero award love. Everyone else also did fantastic, nothing wrong with the acting (except Tarantino, his Australian accent was kinda atrocious lol).
Everything is just stellar from top to bottom. Quentin Tarantino is a very talented filmmaker and he has knocked it out of the park yet again. Fantastic movie, and it is now my second favorite movie of all time. Many thanks for reading.
9.5/10