#50 Django Unchained

In Summary

Following on from the ultimate Jewish revenge story of Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino's ultimate African-American revenge tale.

The story of Django Unchained is relatively straightforward, Django (played by Jamie Foxx) is freed by a German bounty hunter (Dr King Schultz, played by Christoph Waltz) to help track him track down a bounty. The duo then continue their alliance, heading across the Southern American slave states, killing slavers, earning money and hoping to find Django's long-lost wife, Broomhilda.

What looks to be a plain-sailing rampage soon comes to a halt when Django and Schultz come to the plantation of Calvin J Candie (played by Leonardo diCaprio in an entertainingly over-the-top performance) having finally tracked down the location of Broomhilda.

Django Unchained is clearly inspired by Quentin Tarantino's love of Spaghetti Westerns. Not quite set in the location of the Old West, the film is set around that time and has the same feeling of free-roaming lawlessness of that setting. That feeling is enhanced further with a classic Ennio Morricone score.

For the first 60-90 minutes, Django Unchained is a rip-roaring ride of bullets, righteousness and that fantastic soundtrack. However, that pacing completely grinds to a halt once the character of Calvin J Candie is introduced. While Leonardo diCaprio puts in a captivating performance, it distracts from the central revenge tale of Django Unchained.

The film eventually snaps back into life for the closing sections, reminding the audience just what the point of Django Unchained was. Closing out with the stylistic panache typical of Quentin Tarantino's later work.

A Memorable Quote

Dr. King Schultz: How do you like the bounty hunting business?
Django: Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?

Things You May Not Know

• Leonardo diCaprio cut his hand open crushing a stem glass during one of his scenes as Calvin J Candie but carried on regardless. According to IMDb, everyone clapped.
• Jamie Foxx uses his own horse in this film.
• Ennio Morricone vowed never to work with Quentin Tarantino again after scoring this film, stating that he felt that Tarantino places his music 'without coherence'. Morricone would go back on this, working on Tarantino's The Hateful Eight and winning his first Oscar as a result.

One of the Greatest of All Time?
Like a lot of Tarantino's later films, Django Unchained is a brilliantly imaginative idea for a film, there are some excellent acting performances, and there are a lot of individual scenes and moments to like, but somehow the film fails to fully execute its central conceit - this time, being an African-American revenge fantasy.

The biggest issue with Django Unchained is that it is excessively long for what should have been a fun escapade. The section of the film after introduction of Leonardo diCaprio's Calvin J Candie robs the film of all the momentum it builds after a promising opening.

While it could only have been Quentin Tarantino who could have made this kind of film, it is also because of his largesse that the film falls a little short of its ambitions.