Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Quentin Tarantino proves himself, once again, to be a masterful movie maker and 165 minutes flies by even though the theater seats were uncomfortable.  The first hour of “Django Unchained” is an absolute masterpiece.  I can not recall ever being so entertained by a movie in my life.

If you are at all a fan of Quentin Tarantino, you are well aware that everything he does needs to be perfect.  You also are well aware that Quentin Tarantino has a very strange idea of perfect.  His mind does not work like other people’s minds.  Thank goodness for that because that’s how movies like “Django Unchained” get made.

I can not rave enough about the first hour of this movie.  It is perfect.  It is somehow both believable and over the top at the same time.  A lot of this should be credited to Christoph Waltz who plays Dr. King Shultz, a German bounty hunter.  Tarantino has worked with Waltz before in “Inglorious Basterds” where he was also incomparable as Col. Hans Landa.  In “Django Unchained”, he has this perfect sense of comic timing while playing a character that is anything but funny.

“Django Unchained” is, at it’s heart, a revenge flick.  But it’s a Quentin Tarantino revenge flick.  So revenge is way too tame of a word to use.  This is more a make you weep buckets, distill your tears, and use the remaining salt to spread across your land so nothing ever grows again and only then can you die flick.  Jamie Foxx is the one performing most of the revenging as the eponymous Django.  It’s not exactly a deep role, but Foxx performs it admirably.

As usual for a Tarantino film, the violence is turned up to eleven and the blood flows freely.  And by freely, I mean a paper cut causes a gusher like the carotid artery was hacked open.  I always find this a bit distracting and the violence is really the only reason I did not give this movie five stars.  If you are the queasy type, you may want to look elsewhere for your entertainment.

I could easily see myself watching this movie again in the theater, which is very high praise.  I could also see myself watching the first hour of this movie over and over and over again.  If you love Tarantino films, you are in for a ride.  If you don’t like Tarantino films, but you liked “Pulp Fiction”, you will likely enjoy this film as much or more.  If you don’t like Tarantino films and you didn’t like “Pulp Fiction”, you are probably not very fun at parties.