The Hateful Eight | Film Review

If Agatha Christie had a fondness for profanity-laced dialogue and sadistic violence, this is the film she would have made.

I can’t tell you much about “The Hateful Eight”.

Pretty odd way to start out a movie review, right? You click just to see how the latest Quentin Tarantino opus fared, and the first thing you read is ‘I can’t tell you much’ about it. As smugly as I would like to sit here and pontificate on every savage action and verbal outrage I witnessed in Tarantino’s return to the Old West – much like those “Game of Thrones” readers have subjected me to over the years – I will not ruin the beautiful mysteries of this film.

What I can tell you is this: John ‘The Hangman’ Ruth (Kurt Russell) is taking Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Red Rock, Wyoming. Unlike most bounty hunters in the old west, Ruth refuses to bring his scores in dead and cheat the Hangman out of his daily wage. No, sir. John Ruth believes when you catch a hardened criminal like Daisy, she needs to serve her sentence according to the law. John Ruth is a man of principle, of honor.

Unfortunately, honor has no place in a Quentin Tarantino flick.

Along the way, Ruth reluctantly picks up a pair of stragglers in the form of a fellow bounty hunter, Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) – a man who claims to be taking on the role of Sheriff of Red Rock once he arrives.

As fate would have it, a terrible blizzard is raining hell upon our group as they finally hole up in Minnie’s Haberdashery – the Orient Express of this Old West – to ride out the storm. There they encounter a collection of fellas that may or may not be there to kill John Ruth, and free Miss Daisy. Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Demian Bichir, and James Parks each play a part in this sordid who’s-gonna-do-it, and this is where my description stops.

If you need to know anything about “The Hateful Eight”, it’s this: Stay away from social media, trailers, and especially your friends. No one can ruin a mystery quicker than one of those all-knowing friends who just revel in the fact they were able to catch this one earlier than you. The reason this is so important is because THIS time, Tarantino is trying something different. Yes, many have compared the film to “Reservoir Dogs” meets “Django Unchained”, and while that is a fairly simplistic way to describe the film, that doesn’t afford it the frontier justice it deserves.

“The Hateful Eight” is a fully fledged, character-based, murder-mystery. If Agatha Christie had a fondness for profanity-laced dialogue and sadistic violence, this is the film she would have made. The first 90 minutes of the film acts as a flawlessly paced setup which introduces each character perfectly – methodical and deliberate, but with much left to the imagination. As Tarantino carefully lays his chess pieces on the board, we begin to see the intentions – or is it insanity? – of the director. The remainder of the film directly involves us in the audience as we tilt forward to the edge-of-our-seats, gripping the headrest in front us, anxiously awaiting the reveals and resolutions that are a’coming.

Much has been made of the choice by Tarantino to utilize film instead of digital, as well as the ultra-wide 70mm format. While the cinematography is breath-taking and the film-stock has a much grittier heft to it than digital, most of the film takes place inside a one-room cabin, therefore those of you who missed the ‘Road Show’ version of the film will not miss out of the grandiose nature of the film itself. This is a beautifully shot film regardless of your choice of presentation.

Great performances are everywhere – is it wrong that we EXPECT greatness from Samuel L. Jackson at this point? – and this is especially true at the hands of Russell and Goggins. Russell’s Ruth is a decent man doing the devil’s work and he knows someone is conspiring against him. As he attempts to fulfill his role as Sherlock Holmes, the panic and fear in the character slowly begins to emerge, and it is all right there in Russell’s eyes. But the scene-stealer of this “Eight” for me wasn’t the over-the-top antics of Jennifer Jason Leigh many have praised, it was the absolute back-and-forth character work of Walton Goggins. An actor who has been the best thing about two great FX shows over the last decade (“The Shield” and “Justified”), Tarantino finally gives Goggins the canvas he has always needed to show audiences around the world why he is so beloved – You just never know where he is gonna go. Is Mannix REALLY the Sheriff-To-Be? Or is he behind it all? You just won’t be absolutely sure until that final frame, and that’s all in the brilliant back-and-forth Goggins brings to his role.

Lastly, this score. This absolutely perfect score. I cannot remember a more affecting musical composition in a film this year. Ennio Morricone emerges from retirement to gift us with executed brilliance as his stark melodies accompany the viciousness on screen. If Morricone doesn’t receive an Oscar for this, we should all storm Academy headquarters come March.

I would be remiss to not acknowledge my personal affinity for Tarantino, as your appreciation for the film may be affected by your own love for the guy. That said, this is NOT “Django” or “Pulp Fiction”. This is a film for those of us who have tired of explosions and whiz-bang effects, yet also of character dramas where everyone has a disease-of-the-week. This is a movie for fans of character development, of witty dialogue exchanges (even affording us a Tarantino story-time moment from Warren that rivals the infamous ‘Pocket Watch’), of ‘HOLY SHIT!’ moments, and finally – surprise.

“The Hateful Eight” is not a perfect film – the ending alone will be hotly debated for months by fans – but in a year stock-full of dinosaurs and Jedi masters, this was damn-near the slow burn masterpiece my foul-mouthed mind deserved.

I’m already in line for “The Loathsome Nine”.

Aaron Peterson
The Hollywood Outsider