Welcome to alternative History 101 with Professor Quentin Tarantino.

In his last class, cataloged as

Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino burned down the damn Third Reich, Hitler included. This time, with
Django Unchained, he lines up slave traders so a black man can blow their fool heads off. Fuck the facts.
Like Sergio Corbucci, who directed the first Django (starring Franco Nero), in 1966, Tarantino obeys the
only commandment that counts in exploitation movies: Anything goes.

Who else but Tarantino would choose to target human trafficking in the form of a spaghetti Western set
in the Deep South two years before the Civil War? And who else would do it to a wowser of a soundtrack
that includes a taste of Ennio Morricone, a mash-up of James Brown and Tupac Shakur, and (a Tarantino
rarity) original songs from Rick Ross, Anthony Hamilton and John Legend?

Django Unchained is literally all over the place. It twists and turns over an unbridled two hours and 45
minutes, giving history (and your stamina) a serious pounding. It limps, sputters and repeats itself. It
explodes with violence and talk, talk, talk. Tarantino’s characters would be lost in the Twitterverse –
there’s no end to his tasty dialogue. Not that you’ll care. You’ll be having too much fun. Django
Unchained is an exhilarating rush, outrageously entertaining and, hell, just plain outrageous. You’ll laugh
like hell at a KKK scene in which the Klansmen, wearing bags on their heads, stumble around blindly on
their horses because the eyes on their bags have been cut out wrong. Look out for Jonah Hill as Bag
Head No. 2. Unchain Tarantino and you get a jolt of pure cinema, dazzling, disreputable and thrillingly
alive.

The plot kicks in when Django (Jamie Foxx on low simmer) is bought by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph
Waltz), a German-born dentist-turned-bounty-hunter whose wagon still sports a giant tooth. King is a
great Tarantino character. Waltz, who won an Oscar for playing Nazi colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious
Basterds, is again spectacular in his blend of mirth and menace. King needs Django to ID the Brittle
brothers, varmints worth a huge bounty, dead or alive. His reward is freedom. But Django needs King to
locate his enslaved wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

The slaughter starts when Django and King arrive at Bennett Manor, where even Big Daddy Bennett (Don
Johnson, pimped out and loving it) can’t stop the Brittle takedown. Job done, King advises Django to
head off for a more enlightened part of the country. But Django won’t rest till he finds his love. And so
begins the journey, beautifully shot in sun and snow by Robert Richardson.

The final destination is Candyland, the slave plantation run by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, having a
ball as a charming, posturing sociopath who trains Mandingo warriors for sale and sport). Under the
supervision of house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), Candie dishes out whippings, brandings,
beatings, dog attacks and castration. “Is that a nigger on a horse?” asks Stephen, rubbing his eyes in
disbelief as Django rides in. Jackson, the tormented soul of Pulp Fiction, is outstanding at locating the
complexities in this Uncle Tom with an agenda.
At Candyland, Django finds Broomhilda nearly dead as punishment for an attempted escape. Django is
coiled to spring, but holds back during a nerve-shattering dinner scene in which he listens as Candie and
Stephen talk of Broomhilda as flesh for use and abuse.

When Django’s revenge does come, it’s a gore-splattering doozy. Foxx, giving Django his cool-dude props
at last, morphs into a cowboy John Shaft and opens fire. There’s something here to offend everyone.
Revenge fantasies don’t leave much room for moral lessons. 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.

With all of the hullabaloo surrounding the hyper-real depiction of slavery in Quentin Tarantino’s latest
film Django Unchained, most people have probably not heard about what’s actually most shocking about
the director’s latest — fantastic — movie: It’s a love story.

In the two decades that Tarantino has been making films, he’s had Mexican stand-offs, slick-talking
gangsters, revenge plots and ultra-violence in spades. But with the possible exception of True Romance,
love stories have never really been Tarantino’s thing. With Django Unchained, though, he has all the
stand-offs and revenge you’ve come to expect, but still manages to turn the story into a romantic tear-
jerker. Who knew he had it in him?

But let’s back up. The R-rated Django Unchained, which opens Tuesday, is still a tried-and-true Tarantino
flick. Set in the South in the 1850s, the director’s version of a Spaghetti Western opens with Dr. King
Schultz (Christoph Waltz, who is clearly looking to one-up his Oscar-winning performance in Inglourious
Basterds) bloodily “negotiating” the purchase of a slave named Django (fellow Oscar winner Jamie Foxx)
from a pair of bumbling traders because the young man can help him find a trio of brothers with
bounties on their heads.

(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points to follow.)

After purchasing Django, the German-born Schultz takes him to a nearby town and explains that if
Django helps him find the Brittle brothers he will grant him his freedom and share the bounty. But after
Schultz learns that Django will use his freedom to rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from a
plantation (later discovered to be that of Calvin Candie, a diabolical Leonardo DiCaprio), Schultz asks that
they team up to spend the winter collecting bounties with the intent of going to retrieve Broomhilda
together in the spring.

That’s the set-up, and what follows is nothing less than one of Tarantino’s best efforts. The brutal
indignities of slavery and racism in the Antebellum South aren’t exactly easy things to turn into
entertainment, but Tarantino’s gift is finding unlikely protagonists – and here he’s found two. Unchained
may be about a man’s quest to reunite with his wife, but the relationship between Schultz and Django is
the movie’s true love story. (You thought it was going to be the one about saving the girl? It’s that too,
but only in the last act. You’ll see.)

Schultz finds slavery absolutely abhorrent and takes the role of liberator earnestly. (The moment when
he tells Django he won’t let him go onto Candie’s plantation – Candyland – alone because he feels
responsible for the man’s safety might be the most touching exchange the director has ever put on
screen.) Waltz and Foxx are in step from the outset, and their banter is classic Tarantino, from the
moment the German teaches his apprentice about the “flesh for cash” business of bounty hunting to the
moment they execute their gambit at Candyland.

If you liked Waltz’s sinister Nazi act in Basterds you’ll love his turn as a good German here, with a winking
tone that levels idiotic plantation owners and outsmarts everyone he encounters. And Foxx’s ease with
his character’s arc from slightly gun-shy and contemplative accomplice to gun-slinging badass is fantastic.

The duo is so dynamic that its only competition is the singularly blood-chilling performance of DiCaprio.
He’s played tough guys before — The Departed comes to mind – but not so much bad guys. Tarantino
has opened up a wicked floodgate in the actor, transforming him into one of the most ruthless characters
of his career. As the head of the Candyland plantation, Calvin Candie is already running an inhumane
operation, but as one of the top players in the “Mandingo fighting” game (essentially death matches
between slaves) he’s undoubtedly the most despicable character DiCaprio has ever embodied.

To say what happens when these two forces — along with with a brilliant Samuel L. Jackson as Candie’s
house slave and Kerry Washington as Django’s long-lost wife — collide would be too much. But suffice to
say, what’s in the trailer is barely a taste. As with Basterds, Tarantino is on a revenge streak to
cinematically right the wrongs of now the last two centuries. By couching his denunciation of slavery in
both a buddy picture and a man’s quest to save his princess, he has made his movie more than just
another tale of bloody comeuppance. He’s given it heart.
In 1858, a bounty hunter named Schultz seeks out a slave named Django and buys him because he needs
him to find some men he is looking for. After finding them, Django wants to find his wife, Broomhilda,
who along with him were sold separately by his former owner for trying to escape. Schultz offers to help
him if he chooses to stay with him and be his partner. Eventually they learn that she was sold to a
plantation in Mississippi. Knowing they can't just go in and say they want her, they come up with a plan
so that the owner will welcome them into his home and they can find a way.

—rcs0411@yahoo.com

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In 1858, in Texas, the former German dentist Dr. King Schultz meets the slave Django in a lonely road
while being transported by the slavers Speck Brothers. He asks if Django knows the Brittle Brothers and
with the affirmative, he buys Django for him. Then Dr. Schultz tells that he is a bounty hunter chasing
John, Ellis and Roger Brittle and proposes a deal to Django: if he helps him, he would give his freedom, a
horse and US$ 75.00 for him. Django accepts the deal and Dr. Schultz trains him to be his deputy. They
kill the brothers in Daughtray and Django tells that he would use the money to buy the freedom of his
wife Broomhilda, who is a slave that speaks German. Dr. Schultz proposes another deal to Django: if he
teams-up with him during the winter, he would give one-third of the rewards and help him to rescue
Broomhilda. Django accepts his new deal and they become friends. After the winter, Dr. Schultz goes to
Gatlinburgh and learns that Broomhilda was sold to the ruthless Calvin Candie von Shaft, who lives in the
Candyland Farm, in Mississippi. Dr. Schultz plots a scheme with Django to lure Calvin and rescue
Broomhilda from him. But his cruel minion Stephen is not easily fooled.

—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In the late 1850's, former dentist turned bounty hunter Dr King Schultz buys the freedom of a man
named Django from a slave trader duo in a quest to find and kill some men he wants dead. Afterwards,
Django sets out with help from Schultz to find and rescue his wife Broomhilda who like him was sold into
slavery by an anonymous owner. Their journey takes them to a plantation called Candieland, owned by a
ruthless tycoon. Also, they come to some suspicions of the head slave named Stephen.

—Blazer346

Two years before the Civil War pits brother-against-brother, German-born fugitive hunter Dr. King Schultz
(Academy Award-winner Christoph Waltz) arrives in America determined to capture the outlaw Brittle
brothers dead or alive. In the midst of his search, Dr. Schultz crosses paths with Django (Academy Award-
winner Jamie Foxx), a freed slave and skilled tracker who seeks to rescue his beloved wife Broomhilda
(Kerry Washington) from ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie (Academy Award-nominee Leonardo
DiCaprio). Once Django has aided Dr. Schultz in coral ling the Brittle brothers, the two team up to capture
some of the most wanted men in the South. Meanwhile, Django never loses sight of his mission to free
Broomhilda from the treacherous slave trade before it's too late. Upon arriving at Candie's nefarious
plantation, dubbed Candyland, Django and Dr. Schultz discover that slaves are being groomed for
gladiator-like competitions by Candie's malevolent right-hand man Billy Crash (Walton Goggins), and
together they skillfully work their way onto the compound for a closer look. But just as Django and his
partner locate Broomhilda and plot a daring escape, Candie's house slave Stephen (Academy Award-
nominee Samuel L. Jackson) catches wind of their plan, and informs his master of the betrayal. Now, as a
clandestine organization attempts to back them into a corner, Django and Dr. Schultz will have to come
out with pistols blazing if they ever hope to free Broomhilda from Candyland and the clutches of its vile
proprietor.

—ahmetkozan