"Django Unchained": Critics weigh in on Quentin Tarantino film

Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio star in "Django Unchained." / The Weinstein Company

Quentin Tarantino's Deep South revenge tale "Django Unchained" has arrived in theaters, and is among the films moviegoers have the option to see on Christmas Day.

The spaghetti Western-style film, starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington, is about a freed slave-turned-bounty hunter who sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner. It has earned awards buzz (including five Golden Globe nods) but also sparked debate about its depiction of slavery and ample use of the n-word (Spike Lee recently called the movie "disrespectful" and said he will not see it).

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Critics have described the film as bold and original, but some reviews criticized the film for being ultra-violent, over-the-top and overly long. Here's what some of them had to say:

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Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "In 'Django,' Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet." -- Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times.

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: "'Django Unchained,' Tarantino's deliriously kicky and shameless (and also overly long and scattershot) racial-exploitation epic, is set in the slave days, and among other things, it's a low-down orgy of flamboyant cruelty and violence: whippings, a scene in which a man gets torn apart by dogs, plus the most promiscuous use of the N-word ever heard in a mainstream movie."

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: With 'Django Unchained,' Tarantino gives us an American spaghetti Western that's a bloody good time from start to finish."

Richard Corliss, Time: "A pastiche that's nearly as funny as it is long (2hr. 45min.), and quite as politically troubling as it may be liberating, 'Django Unchained' is pure, if not great, Tarantino."

Claudia Puig, USA Today: "There's an epic spaghetti Western feel to Quentin Tarantino's latest action/comedy/romance hybrid that is by turns dazzling, daring, gruesome and astonishingly funny."

David Germain, Associated Press: "Granted, there's something gleefully satisfying in watching evil people get what they have coming. But 'Django Unchained' is Tarantino at his most puerile and least inventive, the premise offering little more than cold, nasty revenge and barrels of squishing, squirting blood."

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: "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."

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter: "The anecdotal, odyssey-like structure of this long, talky saga could be considered indulgent, but Tarantino injects the weighty material with so many jocular, startling and unexpected touches that it's constantly stimulating."

David Edelstein, New York Magazine: "For all its pleasures, 'Django Unchained' feels too easy, too dead-center in Tarantino's comfort zone. He's not challenging himself in any way that matters. He has become his own Yes Man."

Tell us: Do you plan to see "Django Unchained"?

[Chevellechic0107]

I just went to see this movie this afternoon. I didn't know until today all the controversy surrounding it. In my opinion it was an amazing movie. I think Tarantino did a good job depicting racism and slavery. If he had been softer, there would have been complaints that it was sugarcoated. Bottom line is slavery was a horrible horrible thing and no movie until now has actually had the balls to depict it for what it truly was. If not the N word, what do you suggest the slaves be called?

[PeaceBstill34]

This movie would have been alright with its "humorous spin" if racism didn't still exist today. There was nothing humorous about those days, and quentin tarantino isn't old enough to make a movie like this. He was born in 1963. A guy like this just doesn't have the intellect to synthesize the information, let alone make a statement about it. Tarantino is a cinematic *****. He'll do anything for a buck.

[kmorring1985]

It was a movie. QT did as he does with all his movies as far as the violence, and as far as the word "******" (yes I spelled it out), it was a word used and still used..and it is apart of American history. Yes it is derogatory, but that was how African Americans were referred to.

Now eveyone has their own opinion, and are certainly entitled, but I will say this, if you get offended easily, it may be your best bet to sit this one out. If you are not used to the cartoonish violence/graphic violence that a QT film has, don't go see it. No it is not "Roots", but I feel it was all in all a good movie. There were some parts where things went to far (slave vs. dogs scene, fight scene, but it is expected. At the same time people, realize, yes this is fiction, but African Americans were indeed treated in this manner. QT was dead on with his props he chose to use (masks, clothing, etc)At the end of the day, it is a love story. Django goes through all lengths to get to his woman. Slaveholders die along the way, but they were the villians and in QT films villians die horrible deaths. Anyway I loved it..but it's not for everyone.

[G-Pentatonic]

I can't wait for Tarantino to begin his next movie on Palestine.

[taxchurches]

"N-word." Christ, are we in 3rd grade or what? You know, it's entirely possible for adults to use a word objectively in conversation without intending any of the harmful connotations that word may carry. For example, "Republican"---a word that symbolizes evil, hatred, racism, lies and corruption---see? I said it, and nobody got hurt.

Anyway, what does the length of the film have to do with anything, and how does that reflect on a film's quality? A movie, or book, or whatever, is as long as it needs to be, to include the story elements the creator wants to include. I like long movies; some of us have an attention span that can endure longer than 90 minutes. If, however, the piece is overlong because of directorial self-indulgence (which in the case of Tarantino is altogether likely), that's another thing. But don't call it length, call it directorial self-indulgence.

[RACISTSHATEME]

I really must be reading this wrong, did you just try to compare the use of the N word to the word republican... you are truly out of your mind. Call me after "Republicans" start working without pay for the next 400 years and have to call us master and if they refuse, we will beat them and feed their children to alligators..oh and we need to slaughter about 100 million republicans ASAP for these two words (N*gga and Republican) to be the "SAME".

[anymoore503]

I am a black woman, a huge Tarantino fan and occassionally, I can get with some Jamie Foxx, depending... So I COULD NOT WAIT to see Django Unchained! I'd give this movie an A for all things Tarantino and especially Jamie Foxx...what a performance! Just one thing for us fans that love some eye candy, please don't tease us with a naked buff man and try to castarate him! C'mon!!!

The entire cast was amazing...Don Johnson looked so country-handsome! Jonah Hill should NOT have been in this movie...too distracting.

Django is my hero ::gush::

[imno007]

Thank you,ANYMOORE503, for confirming what I as a white man imagined when watching this fantastic movie: that most black people would probably equally love it. It gets so tiring seeing white folk stumbling all over themselves, trying so hard to refer to a word - a simple word - without ever actually saying it. As if just saying it out loud for any reason makes you a racist. And so you end up with so many of the comments you see here, other white people eager to publicly apologize for and speak out against the unrepentant white man (Tarantino) who had the audacity to make a movie that makes profligate use of that same evil word. I think Tarantino very purposefully made liberal use of the word in the film for the simple reason that it's really very funny, when you think about it, how so many people try so hard to get around ever having to say it - at least in public. And it's probably funny to a lot of black people too, especially when white people are so nervous about its use that even to realistically depict the language of that time in a film is taboo.

Psychologists must have a term for this by now, I would think, groups of people who publicly always feel compelled to shout down those who deviate from their societal norms. Kind of like how men in those talk-show audiences are always right their beside their women shouting condemnation down on the cheating husbands/boyfriends on the show - because everyone knows it's bad to cheat, right? But we know the statistics, we know how many of those same audience members are likely to be cheaters themselves, right?

But I'm deviating! Again, glad you liked the movie as much as I did. What's not to like? The bad guys are really bad guys and they get what's coming to them.

[dreamweaver724]

People, it's a MOVIE. I saw it today and LOVED it.I also saw Lincoln and loved it. I am over 50 years old. There were African-Americans in the theater that loved it as well, two of whom were sitting next to me. It is rated R for a reason. The "n" word was used as it obviously was over 200 years ago in that particular setting I also loved "Inglorious Basterds", and I am Jewish. I didn't mind the derogatory Jewish terms that were used...it was representative of that portion of history. I go to the movies to be entertained...it is my choice as to what I want to see, as it is yours. Or, if you don't like what Hollywood is producing...don't go to the movies.

[krotec54]

I'm glad I don't go to the movies. Saved a lot of time and money. Hulu and you tube are convenient.

[uneedtoelevate]

USNE8SS uhh, "Spikey Boy", you might wanna handle your issues. Seems like you've got a chip on your shoulder there...lots of hidden hatred spewing from ya, buddy.

On another note, if I had to guess why Lee didn't want to see the film, it probably had to do with the fact that 1) yes, a white man told this story (which is a ridiculous reason not to see it, in my opinion) and 2) a white man used the N-Word over 100 times to tell the story (which isn't as ridiculous as the first reason).

I'm going to see it for one reason alone and her name is Kerry Washington.

[WBlazer]

Tarantino has always made films heavily dependent on violence. He is also a provocateur and if he can't find a current topic, he'll dig up something that happened 150 years ago. What a yawn.

[TSDBA]

Yawn? Did you see the movie?

[m_p_williams]

One of the most disturbing elements in this film is the completely specious premise that slave owners staged gladiator-like fights to the death between male slaves. The simple fact of the matter is that there is absolutely no historical evidence that slave owners ever engaged in such a practice -- not even in isolated instances -- and one wonders at Mr. Tarantino's motivation for introducing such an invention from whole cloth in to the already unflattering lore of American plantation slavery. This has caused me to reflect on Mr. Tarantino's film credits in general, and apart from his flair for stylistic innovation, it's difficult to find anything even remotely redeeming in anything he has ever brought to the big screen. He is, it seems, the very thing that forms the common thread in his films -- the perverse evolution of social maladaptation in to a virtue. If Mr. Tarantino had never happened, the world would be no worse off for his absence.

[Timeful]

sooo you're offended that Tarantino put slave owners in a bad light? you sound normal...

[krotec54]

So Timeful, you're offended that slave owners should not be put in a good light? Yes, you sound normal. Now think about how hard these slave owners wanted to keep their property and the property wanted to stay with the owners, these owners invested a lot of money and time to train them to run a plantation, the owners treated them like family. Sure you will have some that rejects being the houseboy in a large family, and then they grow up to be the man of a family. But we still have those that are stuck in the past.