Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsTruly superb film!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 May 2019
I saw the trailers at the time and I do like stories about slaves getting one up on their situation and coming out on top but I never had time to get along to see it. I now wish I had made the effort! It's an absolutely superb film!
Essentially a German bounty hunter sunddenly comes out of nowhere, releases a group of slaves and takes one of them, the titular hero, along with him as the bounty hunter has to try to find someone to collect on. Django makes a deal to help the bounty hunter so long as the bounty hunter agrees to help Django find his wife, still held captive on a plantation in Mississipi.
There are some stunning performances from all concerned, the story has the usual wicked sense of humour that all Tarrantino films have but in this case the seriousness of the subject matter of slavery is respected and Tarrantino doesn't overdo it. The part with the KKK and their bags is obviously taking a serious dig at the stupidity of white supremicists and it's absolutely hilarious.
The best part has to be as Django and Schultz enter the the lair of Mr Candie, a dyed-in-the-wool white supremicist, racist psychopath. Samuel Jackson as the "uncle tom" character, servile and lickspittle to DiCaprio's Candie is brilliant, you just instantly hate Jackson's character and you get the feeling Jackson loves every minute of it knowing everyone will hate his character.
DiCaprio puts in a wonderful performance as the utterly vile Mr Candie, a prententious racist slave owner and there's a rather nasty undercurrent of incest hinted at in his rather overenthusiastic affection for his sister, as if DiCaprio's character wasn't vile enough!
The stars of the show are definietly Foxx and Waltz, the character's affection one another's well being really comes out and you truly believe they care deeply about each other, the arrangement isn't just one of convinience, not something you can just write in a script and hope it works, it takes a special kind of actor to make it come to life.
I loved every minute of this film and I can't wait to watch it again and start looking for the little things I missed the first time through.
