REVENGE is a dish best served cold, and Quentin Tarantino turns the temperature gauge to sub-zero in this blood-soaked western inspired by Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 revenge thriller Django starring Franco Nero.

Set in 1858, the film is a simple tale of redemption with QT’s characteristic flair behind the lens and on the page, but he has been criticised for gunning down political correctness at every turn, and fellow filmmaker Spike Lee, who has taken him to task for his love of the N-word before, has said he will boycott the film.

Bullets start flying in Texas when slave merchants the Speck brothers meet German dentist Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) on the road one night.

The flamboyant German is also a bounty hunter, and he kills the Specks to release slave Django (Jamie Foxx). Django is valuable because he is the only man who can identify the murderous Brittle brothers, and, free once more, he agrees to help Schultz kill them.

Django learns that his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) is the clutches of slippery plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Schultz pledges his allegiance on a suicidal rescue mission.

Foxx is tightly wound as a vengeful husband, playing the straight man to largerthan- life Waltz, DiCaprio and Jackson.

The love story with Washington is tender, but whenever it seems Tarantino might be going soft his characters unleash a blitzkrieg of expletives and cock their pistols.