5. Django Unchained (2012)

Here we have a Western film about the pre-Civil War South in which a slave and a German bounty hunter team up to find several fugitives.

Well, not quite. In actuality, the bounty hunter buys the slave Django, played by Jamie Foxx, because he knows that Django has seen the fugitives that he seeks.

He promises to free Django after they catch the outlaws and even promises to share the reward with him if he helps out.

The movie is replete with fight scenes, shoot-outs, and all of the elements you would expect in a good Western. At the end of the movie, however, Django wins the day by blowing up a plantation using dynamite. What’s the problem with that?

Well, the movie is set in 1858 and dynamite wasn’t invented until 1867, nearly a decade later. This isn’t the most illogical turn that the movie could take, but it does seem like a lazy turn. People have defended the ending by saying that the movie was “just for fun” and “fantasy,” but even fantasy needs to stay true to the limits it sets for itself.

If you are going to take the “it’s just a fantasy route,” then you ought to have no problem with phasers and photon torpedoes in the movie either. If, however, those elements would bother you, then consider that the use of dynamite might seem to others to be “cheating” as well. The fact is, movies must operate within the confines they set for themselves lest they make it impossible for the audience to maintain their suspension of disbelief.