Django Unchained

Watching Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is like seeing a comic book come to life.

The film is typical “Tarantino” with over-the-top acting and blood and guts exploding all over the place.  You’re not revolted, however, because the screen titles and music let you know from the get-go that this is a tongue-in-cheek farce that is meant to amuse more than take seriously.

Jamie Foxx is a wonderful Django, a slave bought and made a freeman by the equally wonderful Christoph Waltz, who plays former dentist, now bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz.  Together, the two take down crooks and killers, who have prices on their heads before scourging the South of slave owners and rednecks in the advent of the Civil War.

The Southerners include Don Big Daddy Johnson and Leonardo Calvin Candie DiCaprio, both of whom turn in bravado performances, only to be outdone by an almost unrecognizable (except for his voice) Samuel L. Jackson, who is the power behind the throne at the Candieland plantation.

If you like shoot-‘em-ups where hateful characters get blown off their feet, you’ll enjoy Django Unchained.   Well, maybe not, if you’re from the South.

 I give Django Unchained a 4 for the fan base: a 3+ for the rest of you.  Note, the “D” is silent…but not much else is.