Girls of Geek Movie Review: Django Unchained

Written by Scotty

Having a strong moral code is nothing to be ashamed of.  Even if you notice that other people do not live by the morals you were raised with, it is no reason to change what you believe in.  Morals help define a person and their beliefs, they are difficult to change once a person has gained hold of them, but if they are taken away, that person is just a shell of who they formally were.

Doctor King Schultz has given up his life of being a dentist for the more lucrative living of being a bounty hunter in the United States.  Being paid to bring criminals to justice, dead or alive, the doctor seems to have found a new profession.  Needing a way to track down his next bounty, Schultz decides to find a slave that worked on the plantation with his next targets.  Finding the man he is looking for, Schultz is happy to find that Django has more of a heart than was expected and the two enter into a business proposition together.

Hearing the Django is married and his wife is still a slave somewhere in the south, Schultz decides to help his new partner find his wife and free her, the same way he has freed Django.  Understanding that this venture will take a lot of time, Schultz teaches Django the bounty hunting business over the long winter and his happy to discover the this former slave has a knack for this work.  Killing the bad men and collecting the money on their heads seems to be a great job as Django is able to eliminate some of his past foes. 

All is well and good for the two man bounty hunting team and Dr. Schultz stays true to his word and when the summer comes around again, he searches for Django’s wife.  Finding a lead in Mississippi, on a famed plantation called Candyland, the two must devise a plan to get close to its owner to see if the women still exists.  Posing as a pair of slave traders, the two are able to get close to this Mister Candie showing interest in the slave fighting world which he seems to be king of.  Being able to befriend this slave owner, the two find out that he is much more passionate about his trade than anyone would give him credit for and witness firsthand the life of a third generation slaver.

Django Unchained follows the path of Dr. King Schultz and his new partner Django as they take over the bounty hunting game in the United States.  With Django being a newly freed slave, Schultz has to learn the hard way about how people really see the black man in the states while slavery is still very much alive and well.  Wanting to show that Django is a free man, Schultz makes sure that the members of the law he works with recognize young Django so he will gain his own fame of being a bounty hunter and will not be shot down like a dog in the street.  Schultz has another goal however and that is to train Django in the bounty hunter trade and find his wife while working their way south.  When locating Django’s wife on a famous plantation called Candyland, the two have to befriend a longtime slave owner that only sees his slaves as dollar signs and not people.  Having to adapt to this new way of thinking to fit in, Schultz’s character is called into play by Mr. Candie as he tries to educate the doctor in the ways of the south.

This is one of those movies you will either love or hate.  I loved it for the fact that the director did not pull any punches and everyone on the screen seemed to go along with it. With powerful performances from Jamie Foxx and the great Christoph Waltz, I must admit that to me, Leonardo DiCaprio blew them all away with his rendition of Calvin Candie.  In each scene with Mr. Candie, you seemed to go deeper and deeper into his character until there was no place else to go and I think that is what made this movie great in my eyes, along with a gun battle for the ages.  Not a movie for the squeamish, but if you are the mood for a new take on a western movie, look no further.  Happy Viewing.

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