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Django Unchained (2012)

mattCR

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Title: Django Unchained

Tagline: Life, liberty and the pursuit of vengeance.

Genre: Drama, Western

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, David Steen, Dana Gourrier, Nichole Galicia, Laura Cayouette, Ato Essandoh, Sammi Rotibi, Clay Donahue Fontenot, Escalante Lundy, Miriam F. Glover, Don Johnson, Franco Nero, James Russo, Tom Wopat, Don Stroud, Amber Tamblyn, Bruce Dern, M.C. Gainey, Cooper Huckabee, Doc Duhame, Jonah Hill, Lee Horsley, Zoë Bell, Michael Bowen, Robert Carradine, Jake Garber, Ted Neeley, James Parks, Tom Savini, Michael Parks, John Jarratt, Quentin Tarantino, Amari Cheatom, Keith Jefferson, Marcus Henderson, Lil Chuuch, Kinetic, Louise Stratten, Kim Robillard, Shana Stein, Shannon Hazlett, Jack Lucarelli, Victoria Thomas, Grace Collins, Sharon Pierre-Louis, Christopher Berry, Kim Collins, Dane Rhodes, J.D. Evermore, Rex Linn, Michael Bacall, Ronan Hice, Ned Bellamy, Dave Coennen, Danièle Watts, Jon Eyez, Omar J. Dorsey, Evan Parke, Craig Stark, Brian Brown, Ritchie Montgomery, Nicholas Dashnaw, Jarrod Bunch, Edrick Browne, Kerry Sims, Jamal Duff, Todd Allen, Lewis Smith, Keniaryn Mitchell, Jakel Marshall, Carl Singleton, Ashley Toman, John McConnell, Mark Amos, Monica Rene'e Anderson, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Catherine Lambert, Deborah Ayorinde, Takara Clark, Kimberley Drummond, Tenaj L. Jackson, Carl Bailey, Ross P. Cook, Gregory Allen Gabroy, Seth Bailey, David G. Baker, Richie J. Ladner, Glen Warner, Kesha Bullard, Edward J. Clare, Jordon Michael Corbin, Mike DeMille, Gary Grubbs, Justin Hall, Sandra Linz, Kasey James, Skipper Landry, Elton LeBlanc, Cindy Mah, Johnny Otto, Belinda Owino, Mark Ulano, Misty Upham, Russ Tamblyn

Release: 2012-12-25

Runtime: 165

Plot: With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

Official trailer is now out for Tarantino's new film
 

joshEH

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My reaction yesterday:
cec8e556_Neverending.gif

FRANCO MOTHERF*KING NERO.
...This had my curiosity.
Now it has my attention.
 

Ruz-El

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Not watched the trailer, I like to go in cold. I'm in. Tarantino has yet to let me down.
 

Patrick Sun

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Having been sidelined with he flu for a few days now, finally summoned enough strength to brave the elements to check out "Django Unchained", and I was simply whelmed by Tarantino's latest film. Just a warning, there are a lot of n-words in the film, so if that bothers you, you may want to skip it.
Christoph Waltz (as a loquacious bounty hunter named Schultz) and Jamie Fox (as slave turned bounty hunter Django) make for a good pair. Schultz needs Django's help to find a trio of bounties, and later helps Django find his long-lost wife Hildy (Kerry Washington), a quest that leads them to a Mississippi plantation, where they find Calvin Candie (Leo DiCaprio, chewing up scenery at an alarming rate) as the owner, and the one who could release Hildy. Samuel L. Jackson (as Stephen, Calvin's lead valet of sorts in charge of the slaves) steals every scene he's in.
The gun-violence on the human body is laughably ludicrous, the amount of blood splatter upon each bullet entering any character's body would lead you to believe all humans are simply blood bags with little in bones or muscle mass. I suppose you have to make it cartoony enough to laugh at the stark brutality of it all. Combine that with blood-curdling screams by those shot, it does interject a brief bit of humor amongst the carnage.
Script-wise, I wish there were more surprises, but it plays pretty straight, even if does contain the patented over-writing excesses by Tarantino in some of scenes, and feels a little long in spots.
I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.
.
 

mattCR

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It does play it very straight, but I've got to tell you once you get toward the plantation the rising tension of Foxx playing a character that has to "go along" until things change is fantastic. Tense, rewarding and at times cinematographically brilliant, Django Unchained will be in my top 10 for the year. Kerry Washington is such a good pick for her role.. and Jamie Foxx is nails his performance.
The theater I was in burst out with loud cheers at the end, which is a pretty good sign they had the same reaction I did. The pacing of this during the film was at times felt long, as you note, but once we got to the end the time you kept waiting: get this over, get him to the part where X is going to happen.. is just perfect. It's enough to get the audience just to the border of turning on a character which makes his coming out of the mask that much better.

Great payoff.

My one sore spot was Tarrintino as an actor.. even for a short bit. The Australian type minors as portrayed there were.. he's just not very good. But the rest was a blast.

A-
 

Michael Elliott

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I watched this one several days ago and it's probably the best I've seen this year. I haven't really had time to go through and think everything out but this here was certainly the most fun to watch.
I didn't care for Tarantino's previous film but everything I found wrong with that one has been corrected here. I thought the first portion of the film (basically the trailer) was great fun because of the over-the-top violence, which made for a great exploitation film. The next portion of the film made for a great adventure and then the final act with DiCaprio made for some great, tense drama. I guess the final portion with Foxx going back is just pure madman exploitation.
I thought the performances by all were excellent and if there was ever a time for a film to take over a Best Supporting Actor award ala THE GODFATHER movies then this here is it. DiCaprio, Jackson, Waltz and even Johnson could all get nominated since their work is so strong. I'm not really a fan of Foxx but he too was excellent in his role. The various cameos were quite fun including Bruce Dern. I think the only negative thing was the Tarantino cameo, which was just too distracting for where it happens in the film.
I think Spike Lee is a blabbermouth but I think both Foxx and Tarantino warned people of the controversy when this film first went into production. It seems a lot of people are unhappy with how the slavery is being exploited here but to me this is just another case of people not knowing what an exploitation movie is. The Holocaust, women being abused and various other unfunny issues were often exploitated in these type of films. I thought the film handled the material quite well and I was a little shocked to read that Foxx's people didn't want him doing the film even though he was the hero.
 

TonyD

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I didn't hate it but didn't love it either. First portion with all the bounty hunter stuff and leading up to bounty hunter stuff was great. Had just enough humor and was fun to watch. After getting to the plantation and watching the Mandingo fight just made me cringe. It wasn't fun to watch that and it wasn't entertaining me or my wife. It was too dark and didn't offer anything I wanted to see I wanted to change the channel so to speak. The movie was too too long. I just wanted it to get over with already because it seemed like it just kept going on and on. 2.5 out of 5
 

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TonyD said:
After getting to the plantation and watching the Mandingo fight just made me cringe.
That was a brutal scene but it actually looked to me like the eye popping end of the fight was edited to get an R rating. I've seen this twice already and it's easily one of my favorite movies this year.
 

TonyD

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I wasn't bothered by the brutality of the fight, I'm pretty much desensitized to it anymore. I didn't want to watch two people fighting to the death while other within feet of them cheered them on. It works for me in a movie like Gladiator but not here. Wasn't bothered by the flow of blood because it was just ridiculous and cartoony. Reminds me of the one about the Vampire bar. First section of the movie was great but once they hit the bar it wasn't interesting anymore.
 

Michael Elliott

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It seems Tarantino can bring "mainstream" people to watch trash/exploitation like no other. I've actually had to defend the movie from a few people at work who ended up walking out because of the subject and violence. Tarantino is in the latest edition of Video Watchdog where he and Tim Lucas talk about the greatest sequels ever made and a lot of his talk proves he knows all about these movies. Obviously, if a woman was abused by her father and beaten by every boyfriend she has ever had, watching a women in prison movie is probably going to be hard. If someone's parents died in the Holocaust then sitting through a Naxiploitation pic isn't going to be fun. The entire rape/revenge genre just isn't going to sit well with someone who went through the real thing. Throw in the blaxploitation (check out MANDINGO) and countless other exploitation bits and these things just aren't going to sit right. Again, it's rather amazing that this movie is making so much money and so many people are loving but it appears Tarantino, Foxx and the others knew that some were really going to be turned off by it. I personally thought the violence was pretty much like a Bugs Bunny cartoon because it was so over-the-top. The controversial "violence" with the slave stuff did make me cringe because it's ugly but at the same time I thought it was very much entertaining from an exploitation standpoint.
 

TravisR

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Michael Elliott said:
It seems Tarantino can bring "mainstream" people to watch trash/exploitation like no other.
I said it another thread but I saw Django Unchained on Christmas night and it was probably the most diverse crowd in terms of age, race, gender that I've ever been a part of in a movie theater. The movie seemed to play great to everyone as well.
Tarantino is in the latest edition of Video Watchdog where he and Tim Lucas talk about the greatest sequels ever made and a lot of his talk proves he knows all about these movies.
He came up with a helluva list but putting Amityville II on there was just crazy.
 

Ruz-El

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Originally Posted by TonyD
After getting to the plantation and watching the Mandingo fight just made me cringe.
It wasn't fun to watch that and it wasn't entertaining me or my wife.
I'd argue that cringing at the scene was the point. The first part of the film is a pretty gleeful revenge exploitation. Once Candie is introduced though the film shifted to me and became a funnel for rage against racial prejudice. That Mandingo fight was so brutal because of the situation as much as the fight itself. that Candie is the only one actually engaged in the fight taking place in a posh parlour, instead of a gaggle of people all crowded around the fight in a barn placing bets for example, shows the brutality f not just slavery but the men who owned them. It's just about the ugliest scene in films this year, and has nothing to do with the violence shown. The dynamics of everything changed at this point in the film, and I thought it got even more interesting. The way Django and Schultz boiled with seething rage played against the insanely casual and natural prejudice they faced was extraordinary in the second half. Even the way the "N-Word" was used changed in the playing.
Surprisingly subtle for what many are saying is an over the top exploitation action film.
 

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I got dragged to see this with the boyfriend. Not having seen any previews for it I was opened minded because I like Tarantino. While I thought it was pretty gruesome, I should have figured most of his films are, I enjoyed it. I think the acting was incredible. While it was bloody it touched on important topics of US history. Good film overall.
 

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Enjoyed the movie but it was maybe the most violent Tarantino movie yet, perhaps a little too violent. Not sure. There were some very hard parts to watch.
 

Rhett_Y

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TonyD said:
I didn't hate it but didn't love it either. First portion with all the bounty hunter stuff and leading up to bounty hunter stuff was great. Had just enough humor and was fun to watch. After getting to the plantation and watching the Mandingo fight just made me cringe. It wasn't fun to watch that and it wasn't entertaining me or my wife. It was too dark and didn't offer anything I wanted to see I wanted to change the channel so to speak. The movie was too too long. I just wanted it to get over with already because it seemed like it just kept going on and on. 2.5 out of 5
Your summery pretty much matches my review. Loved the first act. The bounty hunting stuff was great. Didn't like the mandingo fight scene either. The other scene we didn't like was the scene with the dogs and slave. I know why these scenes were in the movie, or I should say I have an idea of why he put them in their, but for me it did not to the story. Act three I was not particular found of and that is when the movie felt like it was "to long" also.
 

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Just finished watching this film.
For the most part, I enjoyed it.
I agree with other comments that the first half was much better than
the second. I love Tarantino movies, but the director tends to get hung
up on these overly long dialogue-filled scenes, film after film. Sometimes
it really arouses the minds of the audience, but many times you just want
to move on to the next scene.
I didn't realize Samuel Jackson until about 20 minutes after he first
appears. The makeup was that good, and quite frankly, for an actor I
get tired of seeing in movie after movie, I thought he was pretty damn
good in this one. In fact, I would call this Jackson's best role ever.
Of course, the standout performance, as always, is Christoph Waltz.
I can sit here and listen to that guy read the ingredients off a cereal box.
Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is first-rate as well.
I wouldn't say this was my favorite Tarantino movie, but man, you
have to admit it's his most brilliant effort to date. Django is a daring
film that isn't afraid to pull any punches. It's brutally honest portrayal
of slavery and racism is quite jarring at times.
BTW, one of the best moments in the film for me was singing along
to Jim Croce. Who would thought that song would have played in a
2012 film like this, but hey, it had me mouthing out the words.
Edit: The more I think about this film the more I actually like it than
Inglorious Bastards. Perhaps I can place Django as the top 3 best
Tarantino movies.
 

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Ronald Epstein said:
BTW, one of the best moments in the film for me was singing along to Jim Croce.  Who would thought that song would have played in a 2012 film like this, but hey, it had me mouthing out the words.
I'm not even that big of a fan of I Got A Name but that song coupled with the visuals created a really wonderful sequence. Since it doesn't have any major action or the usual quotable Tarantino dialogue, I think it's pretty impressive that that sequence ends up being as memorable as it is.
 
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