Django Unchained: Movie Review

Must...love...blood...

When you go to see "Django Unchained," arrive at least a half hour early. We got there 20 minutes early and could only find seating in the neck-break seats down front. It's that popular. And for good reason! This delightful shoot-em-up starring Jamie Foxx as a freed-slave-turned-bounty-hunter, his partner, played by Christoph Waltz (the Nazi villain in "Inglourious Basterds," here a charming good guy), and Leonardo DiCaprio as an oily southern plantation owner they have unsavory business with will keep you entertained from beginning to end with all sorts of cartoonish but very satisfying bloody violence. As Foxx and Waltz travel across the country hunting their quarry, the villains they meet are all delightfully so-bad-you-love-it-when-they-die, and the two heroes are eccentric and interesting. Eventually the mission changes to the rescue of Foxx's wife, played by Kerry Washington (Scandal) - who is owned by DiCaprio - and the show takes a somewhat more serious turn. But all throughout there's lots of humor in the show, mostly in Waltz's odd (and Oscar-deserving) performance, but also lots of sight gags. One particular scene with a bunch of KKK-type guys who are having trouble seeing through the too-small-eyeholes in their white hoods was a standout. Samuel L. Jackson is also hilarious (and at the same time, menacing) as the treacherous manservant to DiCaprio.

One other thing which caught my eye was a lot of small roles for older actors - if you're old enough to know who these guys are, see if you can spot them - Tom Wopat (Dukes of Hazzard), Lee Horsley (Matt Houston), James Remar (Dexter, originally in the cult classic 70s movie The Warriors) - in 2 roles!, Dennis Christopher (the bicycle kid from Breaking Away!), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice).

Posted by: GMan