Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Jaimie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L Jackson, Kerry Washington, Walton Goggins, James Remar, Don Johnson, Franco Nero, Dennis Christopher, Laura Cayouette.

In Tarantino’s seventh film, he delves into the horrible nature of slave trading in 1858. Foxx plays the title Django, having been freed by the German former dentist and now bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Waltz), they team together to take bounties for the country. Upon hearing of Django’s story of his German speaking wife Broomhilda (Washington), they team together to find her. They discover she is now property of evil plantation owner Calvin Candie (DiCaprio), who also trades in slave fighting. They try to work out a way to free her from her captivity.

An almost near perfect film by Tarantino, starts the narrative quickly, and there are few moments to breath throughout the 165m runtime. As the duo go on their journey, we are met with an assortment of characters, most of who are products of the environment and timeline. The ultra progressive Dr Schultz educates Django on how life could and should be.

Tarantino has this unique ability to enthral us in the worlds he creates. We are taken back into this despicable era of time, where human beings are treated so poorly. Waltz is a worthy winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but this also provides both DiCaprio and Jackson some of their best, if not best on screen performances to date.  It is a shame that neither of them were nominated for their performances, as they too were just as brilliant in their respective roles.

The screenplay is amazing, one of the few films that he does not use his traditional nonlinear narrative either. Tarantino took home his second Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this, and it is truly deserved. There are so many moments of this film that the dialogue is so memorable (albeit very confronting in the excessive use of a certain word that starts with N).

The film does fall apart a bit in the second half of the third act – and final 25 minutes of the movie could have been left out, or incorporated into earlier scenes. Tarantino does a self indulgent cameo as an Australian (and butchers the accent!).

Other than this, it is a very good film (once I have reviewed all of Tarantino’s films, I will do a worst to best ranking).

4/5