DJANGO Unchained

Quentin motherfucking Tarantino.  I'm a huge fan and consider him among my favorite directors.  I've loved everything he's ever done (except for maybe Four Rooms), so whenever a new project of his surfaces I'm on board.  Like his previous effort Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained is a sort of revisionist historical piece.  Taking place during a pre-civil war Texas, Django (Jamie Foxx) is a newly freed slave, bought by the likes of Dr. Schultz played by the amazing Christoph Waltz.  He has the intention of using Django to help capture and kill some bounties, and they become partners in violent justice.  In return for his services, Schultz promises to reunite Django with his wife (Kerry Washington), who is a servant on the fourth worst plantation in Mississippi, run by Calvin Candie (Leonardo Dicaprio).

It's a considerably less "important" work than Inglourious Basterds, which even Tarantino outright said in the dialogue was his "masterpiece," but Django Unchained is still a ton of fun.  It's definitely Tarantino's funniest film yet, with the first half feeling almost like an outright comedy.  Waltz is on fire here, having fun being a good guy for a change, and is the best character in the movie by far.  Django himself is what you'd imagine him to be: the less vocal, Eastwood-type to offset Waltz.  DiCaprio also shines and is also having fun role reversing, playing the bad guy.  But one of the most interesting performances in the film, and one I did not see coming, was Samuel L Jackson playing Candie's right-hand slave man.  Whereas Candie is the equivalent to Waltz's Hans Landa in Basterds, Jackson is a slave who has worked his way into his owners good side, which means he has the most complex character decisions when it comes down to "choosing sides." 

The violence, a staple of Tarantino films, is bold and bloody.  It's fun when it needs to be and brutal when it needs to be; with the subject of slavery at hand, I think Django handles the issue really well and reminds us of the horrors of this historical reality much better than Basterds did with the Holocaust.  The anachronistic music works for the most part (now that I've grown more accustomed to it since Basterds), and it's just a fun ride.  The film suffers from "two ending" syndrome, and takes a bit of a nose dive (as did Pulp Fiction) when Tarantino decided to put himself in the movie, with the worst Australian accent I've ever heard no less, but the little things don't cancel out the big picture.  The checklist Tarantino fans have is fulfilled: great dialogue, crazy violence, and a badass soundtrack.  It may not be as iconic as the best Tarantino films, but it's a completely entertaining blaxploitation spaghetti western that only Quentin could have made.  

Rating: A-