If you're a Tarantino-phile I suggest you exit this review now. K, thanks.
Now don't get me wrong, I like Tarantino's films as much as the next person. I saw the line up, Christopher Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx, throw in some spurs and people spitting tobacco and wielding awesome Stetsons and sawn off shotguns and you have the makings of a great cowboy film, no?
NO.
Now before you try to shoot me down, allow me to explain. This film is approximately two hours and forty minutes long. "There's nothing wrong with that woman, Titanic is longer! The final LOTR film is even longer stil!!!" I hear you yell at your monitor. Yes, I know, but those films had REASON to be as long as they were. An hour of this film is just, nothing, a black hole of banter, Tarantino's self-indulgent need to have a cameo in his own film and dragging out what is an obvious story line.
Imagine if Punisher, Taken, Taken 2, Law Abiding Citizen, Leon, Wanted and Machete (ok well maybe not Machete since it's already kinda there) were all set in Cowboy times and you have the story of Django (who I cannot stop calling Duhjango). A black man, sold into slavery trudging through woodlands meets Dr King Shultz who buys (ok shoots everyone) his freedom in return for leading him to a bunch of wanted criminals.
Django, who's shackled and on his way to hard labour until death and clearly has nothing better to do accepts and is made a free man, the rest of the slaves are left with a half crushed white man and a shotgun, doesn't take a genius to work out what happens next.
Here would have been the perfect point for a montage. Of course Django wants to kill every cracker is a 50 mile radius and Shultz agrees that they will go find his wife after all the killin's done. Broomhilda von Shaft, is a german speaking woman who lives with Calvin Candie (DiCaprio) and following a Star Wars style explanation and MISSISSIPPI in massive letters scrolls across the screen (if you weren't aware of being in the middle of a Tarantino special before, you are now) we follow Shultz and Django as they cook up a scheme to get them into Candie's home and out with Broomhilda.
Buuuuuut, does it ever work out that way? Out of nowhere the infuriating character called Stephen (played by a very very old looking Samuel L Jackson) accuses Broomhilda of knowing Django, and sneakily tells Candie who comes back into the room and preeceeds to butcher a black man's skull and talk about dimples in the bone.
Here would have been a great place for the film to end with a spectacular gun fight, and one does occur with Shultz killing Candie, only to get blown to smithereens himself. CUE ANOTHER HOUR OF SOMETHING.
Literally, an hour later Django gets his revenge, and after taking Broomhilda's signed freedom papers FINALLY blows up the Candie house and all those inside, and rides off into the sun- OH NOPE MY MISTAKE, rather he entertains his ladyfriend by MAKING HIS HORSE DO A FUCKING DANCE. Seriously.
When the credits rolled at the end of this film, I doubt I've ever felt gladness like it. I personally would like to thank Tarantino for raping me for an hour of my time. The film had a perfectly good story line, some amazing acting talent, some great gun fights and banter but it was JUST. SO. LONG!
If you love film as much as I do, and finding a great film is less likely than winning the jackpot, you'll appreciate that a film that just drags on for the sake of screen time is like being jabbed in the eye repeatedly by angry crows, not enjoyable. Also, the soundtrack was all over the place, there was classical, music that sounded like it had come from a crappy 70s cop TV show and hip hop, it was like the barrel of crappy music has well and truly been scraped clean.
I probably will watch it again, but only when someone either gives it to me as a present or it's in the bargain bin for 99p. I'm just glad I didn't spend money to go see this in the cinema as I would have ended up in a sugar coma from eating ice cream and popcorn just to stay awake. I imagine those in the cinema either wet themselves or died of hunger/thirst and those who were lucky enough to survive probably smelt worse than a rotting corpse in the Sahara desert.
A massive drain on time. 4/10.
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