The fact that I'm reviewing this film before Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, or Inglorious Basterds is potentially blasphemous but I wanted to share my thoughts on the film while it was still fresh in my mind. Quentin Tarantino is my favorite director of all time so any time one of his films is released I go in with high expectations and I am almost never disappointed. While I would not call the Hateful Eight a disappointment and in most regards I was quite pleased with the film, there were some elements that took away from my enjoyment enough that it has made grading this film difficult, but I shall do my best.
ACTING
A Quentin Tarantino film is synonymous with high quality acting performances often from non A-list actors and The Hateful Eight is no exception.
Samuel L Jackson/ Major Marquis Warren: Samuel L. Jackson, who is often a secondary character in most of his films, delivers the strongest performance of his career. Instead of the "angry black man" stereotype that Samuel L. has become known for, we see a much more versatile performance ranging from a pleasant gentlemanly nature to John Ruth, a cool, calm hatred toward General Smithers, concern for whether Mannix will decide to kill him, rage toward Daisy for spitting on his letter, to crying out in pain when he is shot (just to name a few examples). Samel L. is so comfortable and impressive in this role that I wish he was either given or chose more of these types of roles more often.
Walton Goggins/ Sheriff Chris Mannix: As good as Samuel L was, Goggins stole the show as the seemingly self-interested and suspicious "Sheriff." Goggins plays his dubious role convincingly: keeping the audience guessing as to whether or not he really is a Sheriff and whether Samuel L and Russell, both Union supporters, can trust this Confederate sympathizer. His performance is especially effective as he is believable as both the scoundrel who takes pleasure in exposing Samuel L's lie about the letter and making Russell feel like a fool, and as a sheriff who refuses to murder Samuel L in the face of Daisy's threat. That such a relatively unknown actor can be trusted with such an important role and deliver is classic Tarantino.
Kurt Russell, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen and Tim Roth were all very capable in their roles though none of them in particular stood out. It was good to see Roth back as a villain again though his role was so limited that he did not have much opportunity to shine in this film (the latter could be said for all of these actors with the exception of Russell). Dern also deserves a nod for how well he played a bitter Confederate general though his racist rants were a bit over the top at times without really adding to his character or contributing much to the story (a criticism perhaps better reserved for Tarantino than Dern). In addition to the fact that there are too many main characters in this film to analyze them individually, I have lumped these men together here because part of what made this film unique and enjoyable was that these actors gave a solid performance as a collective not as individual roles.
Channing Tatum was somewhat disappointing as his screen time was so limited that the audience had to be told that he was a brother desperately trying to save his sister without really being shown or getting a sense of his character's personality. Unfortunately by having his easily recognizable name last in the opening credits this also somewhat spoiled the story for me as I spent much of the film wondering when Channing Tatum would make an appearance and was therefore not at all surprised when he shot Samuel L from beneath the floorboards. For such a limited role perhaps his name could have been omitted from the opening credits much like Spacey's in Seven.
Jennifer Jason Leigh/ Daisy Domergue: From the moment the audience catches its first glimpse of Daisy sitting with her big black eye and handcuffed inside Russell's stage coach, Jennifer Jason Leigh had me convinced by the manic look in her eye that she was a criminal. That I cannot picture Leigh as anything but a disgusting, dirty, criminal is a testament to how greatly she sold me on her character. The scene where she laughed maniacally as Russell puked blood onto her face was as realistic as it was disturbing. I'm not sure about anointing her with the supporting Oscar just yet, but she is certainly deserving of a nomination.
WRITING/STORY
I'm going to break away from my usual format of writing/directing as a single category because there are so many elements going on within the writing and shooting of this film that they must be addressed one by one (if you're shocked this review requires special attention be paid to its writing and directing remember that this is a Tarantino film after all).
The story of The Hateful Eight is the most problematic element of the film for me so I'll begin by addressing it first. When I first heard that The Hateful Eight was going to be a western my first reaction was "Another western? But he just did Django." If Tarantino's claim before making Django that he would only make another three movies is to be believed then it surprised me that he would choose to have two of them seemingly fall within the same genre. Isn't that a tad redundant? Now having seen the film my fear of redundancy has been realized in a way I never anticipated.
The Hateful Eight is, sadly, hardly more than a recycling of Reservoir Dogs except where we see the bank robbery take place and a Django and Pulp Fiction twist has been added. Think about it, a bunch of men trapped in a room, no one can trust each other, frozen arctic, Kurt Russell is there- no, wait, that's The Thing- let's try this again: a bunch of men trapped in a room, no one can trust each other, a crime has taken place that we the audience are unfamiliar with and we're trying to figure out who can be trusted, almost everyone dies in the end. Sound familiar? Along with Clue and every other "who-done-it" that might initially come to mind, the fact that this is a Tarantino film (and most people are dying) should have you thinking of Reservoir Dogs (it's even got Tim Roth with a fake identity as well).
One key distinction between these two movies, however, is that in Reservoir Dogs the audience never sees the actual crime being committed which was a brilliant move by Tarantino because it emphasizes the fact that his dialogue and characters are so captivating that the audience didn't need to see the heist to be entertained or to follow the story. In Chapter 4 of The Hateful Eight, however, the audience is subjected to a fifteen minute long step-by-step walk-through of how the occupants of Minnie's haberdashery were killed and how Channing Tatum hid himself beneath the floorboards. This scene was completely unnecessary to the film as the audience had already learned all it needed to know from Sameul L's guesswork and was therefore void of any suspense. For a moment Tarantino forgot that what places him above most other directors is his understanding that dialogue is superior to visuals because the audience can imagine a scene like this better than a screen can ever show it.
Along with a general plot that bore striking resemblances to Reservoir Dogs, there were also parts of this film that borrowed from Django and Pulp Fiction. Like Django the concept of the evil white man who hates black people played a major role in this film. Now as both of these films take place in the Antebellum era it should not surprise anyone that such characters would appear in these films and are a realistic prop for this era. What I find problematic, however, is that the characters of Django, and in this case Major Warren, are portrayed as heroes who enjoy killing white men because they're white. "I get to kill white folks for money" says Django with a smile. While keeping my political views as objectively to the side as one can in this matter, I find it highly problematic in regards to the credibility of the story for the audience to be told that men like General Smithers are antagonists because they hate black people, yet somehow men like Major Warren who uses derogatory white slurs and takes pride in making a white man suck him off because he's white, or Django who blatantly enjoys killing white people, are the protagonists the audience should be rooting for. Such a ridiculous double standard lessened my enjoyment of Django (and added nothing to the story for anyone other than those in the audience who might hate white people) and it disappointed me to see this theme reappear in The Hateful Eight. My point: both of these films could have portrayed racist white men as evil without making black men seem cool in part for being racist themselves.
Showing the murdering of Minnie, the theme of the black man who enjoys killing white people, and the story of a man sucking Samuel L were all unnecessary to this film and not only didn't add to the story, they hampered it. Otherwise the dialogue, interesting characters, and the comical violence that we've come to love in Tarantino films still places this movie above most others.
DIRECTING
In addition to the classic Tarantino format of centering the story around captivating dialogue and comedic violence, there was a lot to love and some to dislike about the directing of this film.
One directional choice that this film executed to perfection was the introduction of its characters. From the initial meeting of Russell and Samuel L. to the final introduction of Channing Tatum, the gradual introduction of each individual character was reminiscent of the dwarves trickling up the path to Beorn's house in The Hobbit and had the same effect: the audience got to know each character without being overwhelmed all at once. This was a nice touch by Tarantino and helped build the audience's interest in both the characters and their plot.
The opening of the film, a tediously long zoom-out from the grave marker, was an homage to old Westerns and while much of the audience seemed to groan or rap their fingers impatiently on their arm rests, I appreciated this scene for its keeping with the Western genre. There were, however, times in the film where the scenes seemed to drag which is unusual for a Tarantino film. For the first time, one of his almost three hour films felt as long as its run time. One example is the scene where the characters inside the Haberdashery are shouting instructions on how to close the door. This scene, followed by subsequent door closing scenes, felt too much like watching Peter Griffin clutch his shin in pain for what feels like an hour. Other moments where the movie drug were when Daisy sits in silence and stares at Samuel L. in the stage coach, during the flashback to earlier that morning, and various intervals inside the Haberdashery where little was happening and Tarantino's usually gripping dialogue was on hiatus. Tarantino films are always long but they should never feel long.
Unlike some viewers, I have never taken issue with the violence in Tarantino films. Those who claim that it is over the top miss the point: it's supposed to be over the top as a source of dark comedy. There was a moment in this film, however, where I felt Tarantino stretched even my limits. Breaking Daisy's teeth and hitting her multiple times, shooting Samuel L. in his package, and blowing off the Mexican's head all felt like they had their place in any Tarantino film, but was it really necessary to show Russell puke vomit into Daisy's face? I guess this is still the man who showed us Vic Vega cutting off a man's ear, but somehow that felt less disturbing to me than vomiting blood onto someone's face, perhaps because the ear scene had "Stuck in the middle with you" to provide an irony that still held comedic value. I'll leave this as a subjective rather than an objective critique.
There were a lot of scene to enjoy in this film though markedly less than most Tarantino films. The scene where Samuel L. accuses Bob of being a liar and outlines the reasons for it was the highlight of the film as it showed off Tarantino's chops as a master of dialogue. The scene where Sheriff Mannix appears to be on the fence about accepting Daisy's offer brings the film's tension to its greatest climax and facilitates the height of Goggins' performance. Samuel L.'s account of how he killed Smithers' son would have been another remarkable scene had it not been for the unnecessary and out of place inclusion of forcing the man to suck him off. I would have liked to have seen greater use made of Tim Roth's character who seemed to be of importance when he was introduced but fades quickly into obscurity before resurfacing briefly before his death.
CONCLUSION
The Hateful Eight is good not great as both a film in general and as a Tarantino film. It contains most of the elements that make his films great but not enough of them (particularly scenes with captivating dialogue) and is dragged down by the feeling that this film is a recycling of old ideas from Reservoir Dogs and Django. I would have liked to have seen greater use made of Roth's and Tatum's characters but all the actors were phenomenal in their roles. The ending and introduction of characters were the best parts of the story and leave me with an overall favorable impression even if some of the story was lacking.
GRADE:
WRAP: 55%
