Quentin Tarantino will go down as an all time great filmmaker. His style has ushered in a modern brand of movie making and created endless copycats. In his third Western foray, Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight puts the directors talents on display for everyone. It’s not revolutionary, but its damn fun entertainment.
In the middle of Wyoming, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) from the Civil War has become a bounty hunter and needs a ride to carry his victims. Fatefully, John Ruth (Kurt Russell), who knows Warren, is traveling via carriage with his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to cash in on her bounty. The three meet “Sheriff” Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) on the way, and stop at a country store to avoid a blizzard. In the house already are a Brit (Tim Roth), a Mexican (Demian Bichir), a Confederate war general (Bruce Dern), and a quiet cowboy (Michael Madsen). The blizzard traps these men in, forcing their secrets and prejudices to the forefront.
Tarantino’s dialogue first and foremost shines through. Very few directors can write profane verbose rhetoric like Tarantino, that is also extremely fun to listen to. What puts the director above the rest of Hollywood is the way he builds tension with it. There’s a point when Major Warren is laying out a theory with just an amazing meticulous monologue. As the monologue progresses, the tension slowly builds until something has to happen. You’ll find yourself more than once sitting on the edge of your seat by words, which is extremely hard to pull off.
Tension in general runs entertainingly high in The Hateful Eight. Tarantino stages the movie claustrophobically, ironically so with his filming in 70mm. The stagecoach ride to the cabin, despite moving, is entirely shot inside the coach, cramping the space for the actors showcasing how eventually, inner turmoil bubbles too the surface the closer character proximity gets. The cabin is a little bigger, but the people presence is also doubled, with the wideshot, though expansive showing how little space there actually is for 8 people to move around. When someone starts talking, EVERYONE has to listen, which must be extremely irritating waiting out a days long storm. And not only would prejudice bubble up, but also the many secrets these people are clearly carrying. By the time the violence starts, Tarantino has prepped the audience for the dread so sufficiently that they cheer out of payoff and a little restlessness.
Tarantino has mentioned that this movie contains his all stars, and it’s hard to argue with these thespians. Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, and Kurt Russell, half of the eight, have worked with Tarantino multiple times before and know how to speak his speak, particularly Jackson, who is preachily awesome as ever. Jennifer Jason Leigh gets punched in the face a lot, and she takes it like a champ and can say the N word as much as any of the Tarantino men. Bruce Dern and Demian Bichir, two of the other newcomers, are also nice puzzle pieces Tarantino fits in easily like they’ve been working with the guy forever. The big surprise is Walton Goggins, who is written early on as a simpleton bumpkin but grows in spades as the movie goes on, in large part because of Goggins’s charisma. I wasn’t sure Goggins deserved the same screen time as Sam Jackson, but the man holds his own and even surpasses him from time to time.
If this is Tarantino’s Western swan song, its a solid finale. Although one of his weaker efforts, Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is still fantastic entertainment, mostly because the director is one of the great students of film, and can generate glee and suspense in his sleep. One quick thing though Quentin, while it is admirable you are showing a more positive take on African American’s here, you undercut your progressive position by punching your only female character in the face in many of the scenes in a three hour film. Just sayin…