Paying homage to the Italian Django franchise birthed in 1966, Tarantino delivers what could serve as the origin story of the bounty hunter, if not for his Civil War-era setting and race-reversal casting. Jamie Foxx (Horrible Bosses) is enormously gratifying as the title character, a shackled slave until his freedom is purchased by Dr. Schultz (a glorious Christoph Waltz, one-upping his Oscar-winning Basterds role).

A German dentist turned bounty hunter, Schultz teaches Django the tricks of the corpse-cashing trade, then agrees to help rescue his protégé’s wife (Kerry Washington, TV’s Scandal) from enslavement. They track her to a plantation owned by the wily Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar), which leads to one of Tarantino’s true specialties: a sequence of confrontation drawn out so long — maybe half an hour — that the tension becomes almost unbearable.

His other hallmarks stand at the ready, too: arch dialogue, shrewd casting, dark humor, a crack soundtrack, a bit of the old ultraviolence and, ultimately, overlength.

But that’s not to say Django Unchained overstays its welcome; its vengeful finale — both of them, one could argue — redeems minor transgressions with a collective punch so purifying, you’d have to be a bigot not to feel it land. —Rod Lott

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