[Review] Django Unchained

The basic premise of Django Unchained is simple. It’s a clever merger of a 1970’s Blaxploitation film and a Spaghetti Western with periodic bouts of witty dialogue, and satirical pop-culture and historical references. Centrally, it’s an incredible love story – one that focuses on a man’s desire to infiltrate and save his wife from a notorious plantation – and on the other hand, it’s a gory action flick with an unlikely hero; a fast-talking, gun-slinging black cowboy whose position as a bounty hunter elevates him to a role never seen before.

Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx plays Django, an ex-slave whose fate is saved from an uncertain, brutal future on a chain gang by sheer circumstance. Sought out by the verbose and German-born bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (played by Academy Award winner, Christoph Waltz), Django is “acquired” and then promised his freedom if he assists Schultz in identifying and capturing the murderous Brittle brothers; all whom have a huge bounty on their head and whom Django shares a cruel history. What consequently results is an unlikely friendship as Schultz convinces Django to “share the winter” with him – essentially tracking and killing wanted white criminals for rewards – in return for rescuing Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), in the spring.