Quentin Tarantino's messy and bloated take on the mythic "Django" spaghetti westerns and "Mandingo" era blaxploitation films; a bit of a disappointment.

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2012)

DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012) **1/2 Jamie Foxx, Christop Walz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walter Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, James Russo, David Steen, Dana Michelle Gourrier, Nichole Galicia, Laura Cayouette, Don Johnson, Tom Wopat, Don Stroud, Russ Tamblyn, Amber Tamblyn, Bruce Dern, M.C. Gainey, Cooper Huckabee, Doc Duhme, Jonah Hill, Lee Horsley, Zoe Bell, Ted Neeley, Tom Savini, Michael Parks, John Jarratt, Robert Carradine. Quentin Tarantino's messy and bloated take on the mythic "Django" spaghetti westerns and "Mandingo" era blaxploitation films has Foxx as a vengeance seeking slave forming an unlikely alliance with bonkers bounty hunter Waltz in hunting down those responsible for the whipping of his kidnapped wife (Washington). Among the brimming cast of Character Actors Past, the purple prose and far-too- long overtly graphic climax (Sam Peckinpah is turning in his grave), the one redeeming factor is DiCaprio's field day extravaganza mustache-twirling worthy turn as the sadistic villain slave owner and the Uncle Tom/Uncle Ben caricature of Jackson's equally nefarious loyal manservant. All for naught in the grand scheme of things and a bit of a disappointment. And yes that is Franco Nero as the original Django in a cameo.