Not a big Tarantino fan but saw Django Unchained and the critics are bang on the money, this is a great film that I really enjoyed. It helps when you have virtually no expectations and I also had no idea what the film was about but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s an old school western with a big theme of slavery and whilst some scenes around that slavery were pretty disturbing it’s done well and all in a palatable context. There was one scene that I really hated, interestingly the one which Tarantino cast himself! He attempts an Australian accent but it just comes out as a weird mix of Australian, New Zealand, British and American. And when you combine that with John Jarratt playing a cringeful redneck Aussie, it really was pretty awful. But that was the only lowlight. The highlight for me was Leonardo DiCaprio as a plantation owner (& ‘owner’ of many slaves including the excellent Samuel L Jackson) who the main characters Django (Jamie Fox) and Dr King Schultz (Christoph Walz) find themselves negotiating with. It’s a spectacular delivery of a hideously slimey character & one that’s made me a much bigger fan of DiCaprio’s work. Also loved the performance of Christoph Walz who you might recognise from Water for Elephants – he won the best supporting actor at the Golden Globes for this performance when many expected it to go to DiCaprio).
Warning for the sensitive… as is Tarantino’s custom, this is full of graphic violence. In a couple of places it’s so bad that you just have to laugh but it’s peppered throughout the movie and gets very gruesome though strangely it didn’t bother me as much as violence normally does and certainly didn’t bother me as much as Tarantino’s onscreen performance did.
A surprise winner for me and I add ‘me’ deliberately as this film has scored a couple of Golden Globes already & is likely to feature at the Oscars also so hardly a ‘surprise’ hit! A nice reminder that you can be well rewarded if you try a film that’s not what you’d usually go for.
Enjoyed the soundtrack too for what it’s worth.
Trailer here if you want some more detail on the storyline.
Warning for the sensitive… as is Tarantino’s custom, this is full of graphic violence. In a couple of places it’s so bad that you just have to laugh but it’s peppered throughout the movie and gets very gruesome though strangely it didn’t bother me as much as violence normally does and certainly didn’t bother me as much as Tarantino’s onscreen performance did.
A surprise winner for me and I add ‘me’ deliberately as this film has scored a couple of Golden Globes already & is likely to feature at the Oscars also so hardly a ‘surprise’ hit! A nice reminder that you can be well rewarded if you try a film that’s not what you’d usually go for.
Enjoyed the soundtrack too for what it’s worth.
Trailer here if you want some more detail on the storyline.