The visuals are superb, the dialogue is witty, the characters are well played, it has a lot of humor and delightfully absurd situations... but does it have to be so darn gratuitously violent?

Right up until the moment the German shot Leo's character, it was pretty good (some Tarantino-style sudden violence here and there, but nothing too crazy) and everything went downhill from there.

A series of crazy super-human fight scenes (that makes the Man With No Name look normal in comparison) with almost everybody getting shot just because, not to mention a massive focus on the gore (with zoom on the blood splashes).

Also, did his wife really need to clap when the house was blown to bits and did he really need to leave Samuel behind to blow up with the house as opposed to just shoot the guy dead?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those 'no violence in movies' type, but I need to get the impression that the violence fits with the rest of the story, not that the director is deliberately trying to make this over the top just because...

I have the impression that the pre-Kill Bill Tarantino was more subdued and that his movies were better as a result. His genius was there, but his excesses were kept in check.

Anyways, my 2 cents.

He was going apeshit on evil fucking people. Made sense to me.

Loved the movie.

The most jarring part of that action scene wasn't the overdone violence for me, I didn't mind that at all. It was the part where they paused the action scene just so he could get caught and sent off to the mines... only to escape and return five minutes later to finish off the action scene. That whole part seemed to mess with the pacing and felt very shoehorned in just for the Tarantino cameo.

I went to see the film yesterday too with my GF. We both agreed it wasn't Tarantino's best work: in fact it may be his least best work (of the ones he's directed, not just written). I don't mean to say it was a bad film, not at all, it's just that I feel he's set the bar so high with his earlier work, my (our) expectations might have been even too high. First of all, I don't think there were similarly memorable dialogs such as the opening interrogation in Basterds, or the dialog between The Bride and Bill in Bill's house (Kill Bill Vol 2). And the fight scenes weren't as "cool" like the battle vs. The Crazy 88 in Kill Bill Vol 1. Character development was, for the most part, also lacking when compared to characters such as the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, or all the characters in Pulp Fiction. And the plot felt like an RPG at some point: lots of "side quests", while the main focus, rescuing Django's wife, was left on the background for a long time.

That said, there were lots of good things about the film too - we both really liked Samuel L. Jackson's character, the racist black old man, and personally I found the premise really interesting. The scenery looked nice too, and I felt bad for all the slaves because they were so horribly abused (and even tortured). Made you think.

About your questions: Think about the place itself. The slaves were completely deprived of freedom and free will, and they were like monkeys that were forced to do everything the hosts desires - even sex. Django's wife even tried to escape the place, only to be found, returned, and tossed into the box outside not even a day later. She despised the place. Wouldn't you be happy to see that house of torture blow up? I think it was there where she realized all the horrible things were finally over.

And about Snowball - Django really loathed the guy, and I don't blame him. Remember when Django told Schultz, there's nothing lower than a black slaver - that's what Snowball essentially was. Django saw him abuse his own kind - the black race - and did so without remorse. He had no respect toward, as the movie calls them, niggers. AND, he threatened Django by sending him to the mines for the rest of his life with no emotions of regret or pity. For Django, the man was worse than dog shit on a shoe and he didn't want him to "escape so easily" by just shooting him in the head. That's what I think happened, at least.

Anyway, to recap, a good film and I enjoyed it very much, but since Tarantino's other work is so amazing, this one unfortunately didn't stood out as the best of all of them.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. If you hear Tarantino TALK about cinema, it's incredible. But he seems to get a bit carried away in his own work.

Yes, please!I don't know if you noticed, but Django Unchained is a superhero movie.I have the opposite feelings. It's in my Top3, right after Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

I saw it at the weekend, I really enjoyed it.

The violence didn't bother me. It was more comical than gratuitous.

The problem was more that there was a bit of a lull in the middle of the film - the trip to Candie Land - where nothing really happened. It was lacking the classic Tarantino dialogue and editing and seemed really mundane. I think the problems with this section were that it focused primarily on Django, and while Jamie Foxx is an excellent actor, his character wasn't really all that interesting. This was Christoph Waltz's film through and through until that point - noting the slave purchase scene and the saloon scene - and when they got to Candie Land, he just faded into the background looking very meek and bland.

Hey whats wrong with Man With No Name? That was like so awesomely cool :)

Yeah, but I'm thinking it was a tad convenient that those people were so evil that he could just go apeshit on them and feel totally justified about it.

Also, shooting the Leo's character's sister felt a tad gratuitous. Actually, this was the most believable part of the encounter for me.

He was doing a shootout with like 20 guys. He was bound to get shot or captured. Yeah, he was a funny comic relief for me (like the guys wearing the white masks complaining about their eye-slits).

I found the part where he lunged screaming after Leo got shot too funny. Ok, I could see a smile, but clapping like a cheerleader when a guy blows up a house (even if it's the Devil's home)... that was just silly.

It might have been a task that needed to be done, but applauding people for blowing stuff up, as if they had just delivered a great artistic performance was just plain absurd to me. I get hating the guy, so shoot him dead.

I don't know, maybe it's because it didn't strike me as something Django would have done.

Maybe that's it.

It was out of character.

He just hadn't displayed such a refinement in cruelty during the rest of the movie (he pretty much shot everyone he didn't like dead, ok beat one of the guy with his own whip).

I just had the impression that the director/writter suddenly put themselves in the character's shoes, with complete disregard for what the character would probably do, and decided to do this.

I guess I've done a lot of AD&D as a referee and just learned to spot when the players are in character and when their character is just an empty vehicle for their own impulses and desires.

In that scene, Django felt like an empty vehicle for the director's/writer's desires. Maybe in a way other westerns are "superhero" movies, but not in a way that Captain America or Spiderman are superhero movies.

I think the most I've seen the Man with No Name shoot at once in the spaghetti westerns is 4-5 guys. I enjoyed Candiland a lot.

I think the overexagerated civility on top of the abject savagery that took place there was classic Tarantino fare.

I also enjoyed watching the intrige and getting drawn in the suspense of how they would try to con Mr. Candy and whether or not they would get away with it.

I thought it quite ironic that it was a member of the race Candy denigrated (the house master) that saw right through their ploy.

I think Waltz's role became more subdued partly because it was Django's bride they were rescuing and as a friend, he let Django call the shots for a mission that was so important to him.

Besides, I think he was more affected by the abject cruelty of the place (not having grown into slavery himself) than Django and had to exert more willpower just to play along as opposed to shoot the whole place up (and eventually, he gave in to the urge, much to their detriment as he himself realized when he apologized to Django just before giving in).

Overall, I agree with you that compared to the characters surrounding him (Waltz, Cando, Samuel Jackson's character), Django felt a bit plain, but at the same time he had this silent intensity that gave him a charisma of sorts.

Nothing wrong with him.).

It was supposed to be like that. I mean, there's two types of violence in the movie, the cold, real-world based one (like the fight when Candy is first introduced), and the cartoonish one which involves the good guys.

Notice how the violence imparted by Django and Dr. Shultz differs from that of the villains-- theirs is more comparable to comic book and kung-fu movie violence and it feels vastly different when you watch it. The over the top blood fountains make it easier for the viewer to accept it for what it is (a fun 21st century revenge fantasy), whereas a viscous, visceral, and drawn-out hand-to-hand fight to the death that's portrayed in a realistic manner makes you feel awful for even keeping your eyes open, which you would undoubtedly feel if you were forced to be present for such an event.

You need to remember though that Snowball was the one who was seen most abusing Django's wife. He was the one that put her in the box, he was the one that was actively against letting her go, he was the actual evil to her, more so than Candy and the rest of the gang; and the fact that he was black was just adding more insult to injury. So no, I don't think the way he handled him was over the top, not one bit.

I saw the film last evening with my girlfriend, and she, like the OP, also had a problem with the gratuitous violence, and couldn't watch the more gory scenes. It was kinda cute, but baffling to me. The amount of blood-like substances pouring out of people is clearly ridiculous - so ridiculous that it simply can't be seen as anything realistic.

Tarantino films are all about style and playing with filmmaking conventions. Spaghetti Westerns of old were pretty damn gory, and Django honors them, in a Tarantinoesque way, by making the bullet splatters about 100x more grotesque.

I thought the film was pretty damn good, if a little ill-paced at times. Before seeing it, though, you should more or less do your homework on what this Tarantino fellow is about, so you'll be going "aaw, Tarantino, I see what u did thar, you sly lovable munchkin" instead of "what in the serious shit!?"

You know the funny thing? The original Django was waaay bloodier and gory than Tarantino's remake.

For the sake of my OCD:

He said Black Slavers were "even lower than the head house nigger, and that's pretty low."
Snowball was just that. He was the head house slave.. it's what he did, he ran the house and the rest of the slaves, answering only to Leo's character. He knew his place, and he knew the place of the rest of the slaves and couldn't possibly see a black person being anything but a slave.

Whether or not leaving him to die in the explosion was 'in character' or not is an interesting question.. I admit, it seemed a little out of character to me, as well.. No one else had he tortured.. but, to be fair, no one else did he really have both the time and the reason to torture.. There were a few other characters he would have had reason to torture- the first slavers, the guy who turned the dogs on the one slave, etc. but none of them did he have the time to do it.
Snowball he had every reason to torture.. and no one else was around to stop him.

.. anyways, for my take on Django:
Great story.
A little over the top, even for Tarantino sure.
There were some major.. not so much holes in the plot, but points where you're sitting there going "Why the fuck did you do it that way." they probably could have gotten Django's wife if they had offered a high sum of money for her up front.. using a similar reasoning to the one why Schultz was asking after her. "She used to belong to a friend of mine, and I greatly enjoyed her company when I would go to visit- it was a pity he didn't offer her for sale to me first.. I would have paid much higher than you did." .. a slave is an investment, especially something like a "comfort girl".. usually it's in how much benefit they will give before they become useless... well, if you paid $300 for something that you knew would become useless down the line so you couldn't even resell it.. and someone came along and offered you enough money to buy 5-10 more for just the one.. wouldn't you take it? After all, what does it really cost you? A bit of your time?

.... but then there wouldn't have been the satisfying bloodbath, because the slavers would have won. >.>