The Hateful Eight
"I would recommend it to die-hard Tarantino fans, but if you're not familiar with his work, this is not one I'd recommend as your first exposure."
Well, it’s very Tarantino. He overuses conversations between characters as exposition dumps rather than having them talk about much of importance. He overuses the N-word to emphasize how hateful everyone is. It’s staged very much like a play, if a play could be done in 70 mm film. There’s even an Overture and an Intermission.
Our plot? A bounty hunter bringing a deadly female killer to town for trial is joined by a few characters along the way. They seek shelter in a stagecoach stop during a blizzard, where they meet up with other characters who sought shelter. But not everyone is there for the same reasons, as is literally explained by Kurt Russell’s character, which feels a tad bit like the audience wasn’t trusted to discern that on its own.
Most of the performances have a quality of “look at me acting in a Tarantino film.” Kurt Russell is particularly guilty of this, never quite pulling off the grizzled bastard role he’s assigned because of his “wink wink” likability. Walter Scoggins doesn’t escape this at first due to his “golly gee” dialogue, but manages to rise above it eventually. The standouts are Samuel L. Jackson as a character who appears to be the smartest person in the room, and Bruce Dern, who actually is. There is a lot of blood, a lot of deception, and a lot of cinematography (loooooong shots of snowy scenes). Unfortunately, the speechifying and the plot pace create surprisingly little tension for such a claustrophobic setting once everyone is safe from the blizzard outside.
I would recommend it to die-hard Tarantino fans, but if you’re not familiar with his work, this is not one I’d recommend as your first exposure. His excess and indulgence of every idea while ignoring subtlety are very much on display here. However, if you want to see a bunch of reprehensible characters chew scenery and draw blood, this will fit the bill.
Reviewed by: Matt Baltzell on December 30, 2015