Django Unchained(2012)- User Reviews

DJANGO UNCHAINED is a too-long movie about an antebellum ex-slave drone on a mission of murderous revenge and rescue. Its historical context is emphasized at the beginning with the date of 1858 and includes (for the historically challenged viewer) the explanation that 1858 was before the Civil War. Creative license is expected in Hollywood movies, but the nonsensical story line has so many cultural, historic, and gun anachronisms that I started tabulating them half way through the movie.

Both Django (Jamie Foxx) and his mentor Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) are bounty hunters who have heroic status in their quest to rescue the former’s wife. Thus they are authorized to gun down bad people, but in several excessively violent scenes also gun down many other people who are basically collateral damage. Further, Schultz is German, an odd choice for his character given that Germany initiated two World Wars, the last one which enslaved most of Europe.

The acting is well done, but I was surprised at the Academy Awards’ best movie nomination and flabbergasted that Tarantino’s screenplay earned an Oscar.