Mirrored my thoughts almost exactly. The first hour or so of the film seemed to be explicitly avoiding a low-effort take on race relations. Anyone can tell a story about how it sucks to be black in America. This one seemed like it was going somewhere else.

Any other film (including Django Unchained) would cast Jackson, a persecuted black man surrounded by white racists, as an unabashed hero. I enjoyed seeing this one turn that on it's head with the revelation of his burning of the camp, his record of slaughtering Indians, and ultimately the rape scene. It made him a much more morally complex character.

Similarly, Russel's extremely pro-Union character was portrayed as not especially shy about racism despite his allegiances, and the ex-Confederate soldier played by Goggins to be a man of honor and conviction even if he's a nasty racist.

Some of those twists on the typical casting of the narrative early on had me really excited once they reached the haberdashery. We had a Mexican now, someone from a group that is not normally discussed in the context of the Civil War/Reconstruction period. An Englishman who by all rights should have a totally foreign and unattached perspective on black/white race relations in the US. And even the inclusion of a character from Texas, a state that was part of but culturally and ethnically very different from the rest of the Confederacy, could have provided for some interesting perspectives.

All these characters, many of which might never have met anyone in their life from some of the other groups represented, are bundled up in close quarters with each other. They all seem to have ulterior motives and dark, hidden pasts, and can't trust each other. I was strapped in and ready for them to dig more and more out of each other, with new information exposing lies, prejudices, and hypocrisies that constantly redraw their alignments.

Then after the intermission, it's just dropped. No interesting background stories for anyone who hadn't gotten one already. No more new, historically ignored perspectives. No more shifting trusts and alliances. Turns out nearly all the characters were just in cahoots from the start anyway, and their goal was the very obvious one forecasted at the start of the film. Now it's just 90 minutes of seeing how these characters are going to murder each other. Something something hatred is bad. Yawn.