Once again, Quentin Tarantino brings us another bloody tale of repression, empowerment and revenge, in his latest movie, “Django Unchained”. The freed-slave revenge story is a wonderful mix of blaxploitation, slavery tales and spaghetti Westerns. Jamie Foxx plays Django, a slave on a Southern chain gang just a few years before the Civil War. Early on, Django doesn’t have much to do but be chained and burn with revenge-seeking rage. Eventually, that changes when Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz of “Inglorious Basterds”), a charming but deadly dentist-turned-bounty-hunter enters the picture.
What turns a one-man show into a bounty-hunting dynamic duo is a bargain struck between Django and Schultz: Schultz will buy Django, and in turn Django will become Schultz’s deputy and help him find three murderous and potentially profitable brothers, with Django using his knowledge of the countryside and its citizens. If Django does this, Schultz will set him free. When these two team up, they are cool in every sense of the word; Django because of the way he carries himself, and Schultz because he’s funny, clever, and deliciously violent.
The deal takes the two hunters to a plantation called Candyland, home of a notoriously brutal plantation owner named Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), who treats his slaves with some high-level combinations of evil and tastelessness. Among Candie’s slaves happens to be Django’s smoking-hot long-lost wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).
Other notable characters include Stephen (played by the ever-awesome Samuel L. Jackson), a sharp-witted house slave who runs Candyland. We have to tell you, despite Stephen being a relatively small role; Jackson plays him with fantastic and deadly precision. In cameos, Don Johnson appears, and Franco Nero, who played a drifter named Django in a 1966 spaghetti western of the same name.
Django Unchained seems to run a bit long at times, but you won’t even notice it. There is absolutely no question that Django Unchained is an exciting, entertaining, and ridiculously cool movie. You’ll get some people that will have problems with it, but tell them to screw themselves, and go check it out. You’ll have a blast.
Photos courtesy The Weinstein Company.
