I’ve been putting off the review for last night’s film because I’m expecting a little blowback. Let me just be blunt–I’m not a Tarantino fan. I think he peaked with Reservoir Dogs, and most of the rest of his films I feel are a collection of “things that Quentin thinks are cool.” I know, I know…I’m in the minority. Now, that said, I will say that I like Django Unchained as much as (actually more than) any of his other films. It was mostly devoid of the things that irritate me about his other work, and I really liked the two leads, Foxx and Waltz. I even found Leonardo DiCaprio, who usually takes me right out of a film, to be intriguing. In fact, I only had three significant complaints.

First, I thought the soundtrack was a fractured mess, and made me far too aware of it for my liking (Jim Croce?!). I also was frustrated with the cartoonish violence–and I’m speaking of the gunshots–which Peckinpah probably would have found egregious. Both of these kept pushing me out of what I thought was a good story with engrossing characters. My third issue, which was much smaller than the other two was that I thought it could have lost about 20 minutes here and there.

IMDB gives it a 8.5 (really?), which I find pretty high. I’d go as high as a 7, though. But seeing as I’m not much of a fan, you could probably consider that high praise. (running time 2:45)