Django Unchained

Directed by Quentin Tarantino, this is the incredible story of one man free from slavery and his heroic and violent attempts to rescue is enslaved wife with the help of a bounty hunter.

Tarantino, famous for his uber-violent homage’s to film styles gone by, takes on western and blaxsploitation and mashes them together to create a hilarious set of circumstances that brings this film together neatly.  And its unmistakably Tarantino with bright colours, excessive swearing and comic book bloody violence through out.

Jamie Foxx is Django, a man rescued from slavery by Christoph Waltz’s Dr King Schultz, a bounty hunter disguised as a dentist. Schultz is looking for his next criminals and knows Django can help him find them.  Suddenly freed from slavery and given a job as Schultz right hand man with the same respect as whites, Django goes on a road to discovery of himself and of his wife Broomhilda, sold into slavery far away. Off starts an adventure of bounty hunting, murder, and comical calamity.

Both Waltz and Foxx are amazing in this film although I do feel like Waltz outshone our named hero.  His comical timing is excellent throughout.  An absolute star turn from Leonardo DiCaprio, he realise how much of a method actor he is when you see him! There were some fun cameos from Don Johnson and Michael Parks and even QT himself. 

As much as I loved this film (and I really did) I was really irked by the Broomhilda character.  While acted well by Kerry Washington, I felt that it was a bit of a cop out to have the damsel in distress character that didn’t try to defend herself.  QT is has always been excellent at writing and directing some feisty and strong female characters (Kill Bill, Jackie Brown etc), it would have been better to see Brromhilda rise up and perhaps grab a gun and shot one of her white captors.

There was so much comedy in the film, I did wonder if the film was making any point about slavery or America in that time.  It was almost like QT used these as a premise to laugh at and not go into the slightly deeper issues with it.  Hence his real reluctance to talk about it in interviews.

Many have also talked about the excessive use of the “N” word in the whole film.  Many get upset about it, many find it abhorrent.  It’s a fact that it was used very liberally at that time, but the film shows us each iteration of the word means different things.  It was used in different contexts to mean different things and at times it could be funny, affectionate, as well as derogatory.  That’s not to say it’s right, I certainly wouldn’t say it but I found it an interesting approach to the word itself.

I did find that I was one of a few that laughed throughout the film.  The majority of the people in the cinema were incredibly uncomfortable with the level of violence and the use of the N word, but loads of people were chatting about it once it had finished.

There were some really great songs in the film and as always QT knows how to pick them to fit just perfectly in the right scene.  I loved Rick Ross’ number “1000 Black Coffins”, excellently written by Foxx himself.

I loved this film and really want to watch it again, It’s up there with Jackie Brown for me.  QT’s finest hour.  Go see it if you get a chance!