Rating of
3.5/4
"Django Unchained" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 11/05/13
Rescuing a slave to help him track down a trio of outlaws, a German bounty hunter then forms a partnership with him and they set about finding and freeing his wife from servitude. Although it seems like more genre hopping from Quentin Tarantino, this western is really once again an exploitation-based revenge fantasy. But let's face it, one can have little sympathy for both the Nazis of Inglourious Basterds and the sadistic slavers of Django Unchained and so even the most lily-livered and liberal of us can get a cheap thrill out of experiencing some brutal retribution as we watch the down-trodden and exploited rise up to become a total bad-ass! Jamie Foxx is super-cool as a kind of be-stetsoned Shaft and Christophe Waltz is his usual brilliant self whose gentleman killer is the one outsider who questions the morality of buying and selling other human beings. Leonardo DiCaprio also obviously relishes the role of the moustache-twirling villain and Samuel L. Jackson's ultimate Uncle Tom is possibly even more hissable and worthy of a bloody come-uppance. The prolific use of the N-word may be off-putting for some but it becomes almost Blazing Saddles level silly, and one of the funniest scenes parodying the KKK could be straight out of Mel Brooks' film. As always seems to be the case with Tarantino's films these days, it could've stood to be half an hour shorter and it lacks the spark of genius that marked his earlier work, but Django Unchained is still a highly entertaining revenge western pastiche with enough bloody violence to make Sam Peckinpah proud.
