Django Unchained (2012): Review

For Friday Night Movie this week I went and saw Django Unchained, the new Quentin Tarantino movie.  I hate to say it, because I usually like Tarantino movies and I know that he likes westerns and this was his full fledged western movie, but it was not very good and overly offensive.  I know that Tarantino likes to push the box with what he can get away with in his movies, such as plot of the movie, over the top music, language, and dramatic violence, but I didn't like this one.
Django Unchained follows Django, played by Jamie Fox, a slave who is freed by Dr. King Schults, played by Chirstoph Waltz, a bounty hunter who needs Djano's help to identify his current targets.  After being freed by Dr. Schults, the two of them plan to rescue Django's wife who has been sold to Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. They do this by tricking Monsieur Candie into thinking that they are in the market to buy a top slave fighter.
When I think about this movie, I break it into three parts.  The first part I really enjoyed and was the part of the movie, where Dr. Schults teaches Django about how to be a bounty hunter and the focuses on the relationship between the two of them.  This is were what I really like about Tarantino films is hightlighted and as I was watching the beginning of the movie, I expected to like the entire much better (I actually felt quite disappointed with the rest of the film).  The second part is the overly offensive part of the movie, where the N word is used almost like a comma. I know that the story line itself was offensive, with the focus on slaves and fighting to the death (think underground cock fighting with slaves) but for me it was distracting with the constant use of the N word. I think that the point could have been made without this usage and I found it difficulty to get past.  This is probably due to my cultural conditioning to be socially correct and to not use this word as well as the general understanding that it is not okay to say.  The third part of the movie, was the standard Tarantino violence.  With lots of gore, over the top death kill, and with the over music that you expect from Tarantino.
The best part of the movie was Christoph Waltz, he was fabulous and I think that he is a great actor, who really hits the nuances of his characters, specifically when working with Tarantino.  The worst was Samuel L. Jackson, I just couldn't get past how I knew it was him but that he was badly made up to be older. He was very aggressive in the delivery of his character, but it didn't seem to work within the other character dynamics. 
This is only a movie to watch, if you like Quentin Tarentino and if you can handle the overtly offensive plot and language without getting upset.  This movie is definitely not for everyone.

My Rating: 1+