Django Unchained.

I was 15 the first time i saw a Quentin Tarantino film. It was Reservoir Dogs in a flea pit cinema in Tullamore. I couldn't believe my Father was bringing me and my friends to see this film we had heard so much about. It was supposedly the ultimate bloodfest. Something that earned you respect if you could sit the whole way through it. Happily it was something so much more than that. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time but i knew i was seeing something special. At a time when all i wanted in a film was violence and nudity, this paved the way for my love of pithy and fastly spoken, interesting dialogue. It was funny in a way i'd never experienced before. Profane sure but with a poetry to it as well. Suffice to say. i loved the film and still do.

Over the next 20 yrs QT tried his hand at a few different genres, war, blaxploitation, horror even Kung Fu to  varying degrees of success. I watched them all and loved even the bad ones. But as a big fan of westerns i always wondered if he would ever try his hand at one. It was too much to hope for. But then one day i was reading Empire and i saw the news i had been waiting for. QT was thinking of remaking Django, the spaghetti western starring Franco Nero.

Fast forward 4 or 5 yrs and the film was finally realised. And man it was worth waiting for. Its a remake in name only but he has made the film his own. And non QT fans will be happy to know that the film is in chronological order, something that has been a bugbear for quite a few.

Django is a slave who is rescued by Dr King Schultz who needs him to identify a three brother gang so he can, as a bounty hunter, legally kill them and claim the reward for their capture. Django goes along with this because the 3 brothers tortured him and sold his wife, Broomhilda, into slavery and this is the only realistic way he can ever get revenge on them and see his beloved again. Django and Dr King become friends and team up to get Django's wife back when they discover she has been sold to Calvin Candie, the owner of a Mississippi slave plantation called Candy Land.

Its a simple story. Its been told many times before but what transforms this into something special is the calibre of the acting and writing.

Jamie Foxx plays the title role in the film. He's economical with his words and actions but this means what he does and says has real power behind it. He's perfectly fine in the part but i cant help but wonder what original choice Will Smith would have done with the role. Kerry Washington plays the part of Broomhilda Von Shaft. A German speaking house slave and the love of Django's life. She's very good in a woefully underwritten part. Id be amazed if she has more than 10 minutes screen-time in the entire film. Christoph Waltz plays Dr King Schultz. A German ex dentist turned Bounty hunter. He is superb in his part and fully deserved his Academy award. In other hands this part could have been wildly over the top but Waltz gladly keeps the showiness to the minimum. Unlike Leonardo DiCaprio who plays slave owner Calvin Candy. He plays the part with snarling relish. Spitting racial epitaphs all over the place and wallowing in bloodlust. A lot of A-list actors would be terrified of this role but Leo really gets into it, throws all caution to the wind and is so much the better for it. But the main villain of the piece is the head house slave played by QT regular Samuel L. Jackson. He is what was known back then as an Uncle Tom. A black man who has sided with the slave owners to help subjugate his own people in an effort to make his own life better. You can see in him a lifetime of bitterness and self hatred and this makes him the real black heart of the piece. Its a career best performance and its a crying shame he wasn't recognised by the Academy for the part.

There is also fine support from the likes of Walton Goggins as slave driver Billy Crash, and Don Johnson as the first plantation owner to have to misfortune of trying to bump heads with our two heroes. And a lovely little cameo from Franco Nero as a man who knows full well that "The D is silent".

Tarantino as usual fills the air with his wonderful dialogue. It never feels forced or overwrought and best of all, you could just sit there and listen to it for ages. A dinner party scene with the main cast talking around a table lasts 20 minutes but feels like 5.

A cracking film that I'd recommend this to anyone. As long as they aren't squeamish!