‘Django Unchained’ Tarantino’s Christmas gift to moviegoers
Quentin Tarantino is by far my favorite director. In my eyes he can do no wrong. Because of this I had been really looking forward to Django Unchained.I followed all of posts on social media and got really excited when pictures started rolling out. When I finally got to see the movie, it was an amazing experience, kind of like the experience some people have with visiting Disneyland.
Django Unchained begins with a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the hunt for The Brittle brothers and only one man could easily match their face to a name; that man is Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave. Schultz then recruits Django to assist him in exchange for his freedom. Schultz asks him what his plans are as a freeman and Django reveals that he plans on rescuing his slave wife and taking her to freedom. Schultz compares Django’s story to an old German story and decides to help Django. He teaches him the ropes of bounty hunting and Django picks up the trade quite quickly. As long as Django helps him with the bounty hunting business during the winter he will help him find and free his wife come spring.
The bulk of Django Unchained follows Schultz and Django as they work together to free Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from Candyland; a giant plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). They con their way onto the plantation and have to fight every step of the way to try to free Broomhilda.
Django Unchained is great for so many reasons; the story is amazingly written and told in a way that only Tarantino can pull off, the character portrayals are fun and incredibly well performed and the blood and gore is reminiscent of a grindhouse film, perfectly over the top. One of the things about this film that stood out the most to me is how Tarantino made a fun and over the top movie, but still managed to pay respect to a very serious situation. He treats the slavery and belittlement of people very seriously. You feel their pain and can’t help but feel sad about that era of history.
The other notable aspect of Django Unchained is the cast. Tarantino put together an amazing group of people who were perfect for their parts. Foxx does an incredible job portraying a slave who receives an opportunity with less odds of happening than winning the lottery. DiCaprio plays a villain was ease and puts on a very entertaining performance as Candie. He is very believable in his role and it was great to see how Tarantino utilized him. Finally there was Waltz. He was great in Inglorious Bastards and shined even brighter as the German bounty Hunter in Django Unchained. His role was like nothing I’ve seen before and Waltz is definitely a staple in my list of favorite acting talent.
I can’t say it’s a perfect movie, but it’s definitely an amazing piece of art from Tarantino and I think it’s worth everyone’s time to see it in theaters; I’ll probably see it multiple times in theaters and am hoping that the DVD/Blu-Ray release will have some good special features. Merry Christmas!
