Django Unchained (2012)

Yet another righteous revenge movie from Tarantino, Django Unchained sums up our tale of a black slave's life a few years before the American Civil War. The story begins with a fortuitous encounter with Dr. Schultz, a forward-thinking bounty hunter who frees Django and trains him as his apprentice. Django excels and gains the confidence and wealth to challenge the social conventions of the time with the ultimate goal of freeing his wife from a slave plantation. The film hits all the right theatrical notes and masks it's lengthy run time quite well but there's an over-arching feeling that the story is a little too-cooked: with two-dimensional good guys and bad guys and a reliance on anachronism for emotional punch. The soundtrack is fantastic and well-placed throughout the movie but I couldn't shake the parallels of its subtler and richer cousin Inglourious Basterds. Still, it's definitely worth seeing.

8/10