The Hateful Eight Review

[Westside Steve]

The Hateful Eight

 

Weinstein

 

R. 167 min

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love him or hate him you've got to give props to Quentin Tarantino. Oh there are quite a few oddball directors out there, including guys like John Waters or David Lynch but none who seem to have nailed the across the board infamy of QT.

 

Tarantino has a large and loyal fanbase and rarely fails to deliver a fascinating product.

 

With THE HATEFUL EIGHT, his 8th movie ironically, he keeps with the period piece premise and the highly charged racial aspect from DJANGO.

 

It's a convoluted story of two bounty hunters who are thrown together on a mission to take their prey into town.

 

John Ruth, the Hangman (Kurt Russell) always takes his prisoners in alive to be hung.

 

Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson) has no such moral qualms.

 

The Major, with his pile of corpses, and the Hangman with his living prisoner, called the princess, a ruthless killer, are all trapped in a blizzard in a combination bodega, inn, and livery stable waiting for a break in the weather.

 

Drawing a similarity to RESERVOIR DOGS a motley and varied collection of people are together in one basic setting.

 

Also the story is told in chapters and flashback not unlike PULP FICTION.

 

During the nearly three hour runtime there are plenty of twists and turns in the intricate story.

 

As you would expect with a Tarantino film nothing is exactly as it seems, and you can bet there will be blood.

 

I've heard there is a second edition, the road show addition, with an even longer run time but even @ 167 minutes I thought a little bit of trimming would have been in order. Not much, but just enough to eliminate the slight drag after the first hour.

 

I must admit, however, that even if you start to fade the final chapter is guaranteed to grab you and shake you back into focus.

 

The cast, including Tarantino cohorts Jackson, Russell, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen are joined by other quality actors Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walter Goggins and Bruce Dern to mention a few. Another grape I have is that with all these first class actress there were times but the dialogue wasn't quite as crisp and natural as one might expect; not a deal breaker but...

 

I don't think THE HATEFUL EIGHT reaches the heights that some of his previous films have but despite the length it is captivating with a decidedly bang-up ending.

 

 

B

 

 

WSS

[The Gipper]

I would probably rank this as perhaps Tarantino's weakest effort. In that first hour it seemed sometimes like Russell and Jackson were just yelling lines at each other.

It does not come anywhere near the crisp, tense dialogue that you find in Dogs/Pulp/Basterds and the underrated IMO Jackie Brown.