Quentin Tarantino's latest film, "Django Unchained," doesn't hit theaters for another few weeks, but the film is already garnering some of the best reviews of the year.
Just nominated for a best director Golden Globe, "Django Unchained" stars Jamie Foxx, Christopher Waltz, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, Bruce Dern, and Jonah Hill.
The film follows Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave living in the Deep South after having been separated from his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). When Django is held for a slave auction, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German bounty hunter under the cover of a dentist, frees Django from his masters and gives him the option of helping him hunt down and kill the Brittle Brothers, a ruthless gang of killers whom only Django has seen. In return, Schultz says he'll free Django from slavery completely and help find and rescue Broomhilda from plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
"Django Unchained" has critics split in a few areas - some chide Tarantino for pouring on unnecessary scenes in an already long movie, others happily basked in its almost three hours - but most seem to agree this is easily one of 2012's best films. Which, considering the recently announced Golden Globe nominations isn't too surprising; "Django Unchained" scored Tarantino his first-ever Best Director nomination. "Django Unchained" also currently has an overall rating of 100 percent on movie review site rottentomatoes.com.
Entertainment Weekly liked Tarantino's traditional style, but thought that overall it fell short of his past efforts.
"It would now be a surprise if a new Quentin Tarantino movie didn't dip into the well of '70s grind-house cinema... Is Django attacking the cruelty or reveling in it? Maybe both, and that's what gives the film's best parts their danger - the way that Tarantino, with lip-smacking down-and-dirty subversive gusto, rubs our noses in the forbidden spectacle of America's racist ugliness." Said Owen Gleiberman in his review for Entertainment Weekly.
"Yet 'Django' isn't nearly the film that 'Inglourious [Basterds]' was. It's less clever, and it doesn't have enough major characters - or enough of Tarantino's trademark structural ingenuity - to earn its two-hour-and-45-minute running time," Gleiberman concluded.
Rolling Stone's Peter Travers couldn't get enough of Tarantino's otherworldly spectacle.
"Tarantino obeys the only commandment that counts in exploitation movies: Anything goes," said Travers in his review for Rolling Stone.
"Django Unchained is an exhilarating rush, outrageously entertaining and, hell, just plain outrageous... Unchain Tarantino and you get a jolt of pure cinema, dazzling, disreputable and thrillingly alive. Django is out for blood. So is Tarantino, but he doesn't sacrifice his humanity or conscience to do it. In this corrective to Gone With the Wind, he sticks it to Hollywood for a Mandingo-Mammy fixation that leaves the issues of slavery out of mainstream movies. He sticks it to Spike Lee, who once objected to Tarantino's use of the n-word in 1997's Jackie Brown, by spraying the word like machine-gun fire. And he sticks it to pundits who think he crosses the line by reveling in Django's vengeance. Wake up, people. Tarantino lives to cross the line. Is Django Unchained too much? Damn straight. It wouldn't be Tarantino otherwise," Travers added.
Film.com loved the movie as well, saying that it succeeded best as a catalyst for stirring up thought, but was less convinced of its ability to endure over time.
"If 'Django Unchained,' a violent, whirling fantasia into our dark past, does nothing else it ought to rattle some complacent audience members a bit and get them to reflect on history. That it does so with, by and large, an entertaining and energetic bit of shoot 'em up vengeance is hardly a bad thing, either," wrote Jordan Hoffman for film.com.
He continued: "'Django Unchained' is a great discussion piece, but I'm not sure it is a great film. Enjoyable in a cathartic sense, absolutely, and perhaps even important considering our amnesiac society. I certainly recommend it, despite its loose and disheveled appearances."
"Django Unchained" hits movie theaters on Dec. 25.
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