Directed by:
Quentin TarantinoScreenplay:
Quentin TarantinoCinematography:
Robert RichardsonComposer:
Ennio MorriconeCast:
Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, James Parks, Dana Gourrier (more)VOD (5)
Plots(1)
Six or eight or twelve years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry Wyoming landscape. The passengers, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), race towards the town of Red Rock where Ruth, known in these parts as "The Hangman," will bring Domergue to justice. Along the road, they encounter two strangers: Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a black former union soldier turned infamous bounty hunter, and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the town's new Sheriff. Losing their lead on the blizzard, Ruth, Domergue, Warren and Mannix seek refuge at Minnie's Haberdashery, a stagecoach stopover on a mountain pass. When they arrive at Minnie's, they are greeted not by the proprietor but by four unfamiliar faces. Bob (Demian Bichir), who's taking care of Minnie's while she's visiting her mother, is holed up with Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the hangman of Red Rock, cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the storm overtakes the mountainside stopover, our eight travelers come to learn they may not make it to Red Rock after all... (The Weinstein Company)
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Reviews (18)
The Hateful Eight get off to a weaker and quite long start, but then becomes a hardcore Tarantino movie par excellence. A clever theatre play with audience expectations and reminiscent of both Reservoir Dogs and Carpenter’s The Thing in western guise (the movie adopted three distinctive soundtrack pieces, an isolated frosty winter environment, the scene of finding the culprit in the characters’ own ranks…). Also, thanks to the sinister music by Morricone, this is the darkest, most hateful Tarantino movie, more hateful than the hateful Reservoir Dogs. Samuel L. Jackson, who revives some of the traits of his most iconic character, Jules Winnfield, is probably the coolest actor of today. His black dick story is just topnotch. Quentin knows he can do whatever he wants and we will always fall for it!
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An almost detective-like Tarantino, with amazing casting at its back moves the genre into entirely uncharted waters (well, snowy hills) while still remaining himself. A well balanced team of actors, headed by Samuel L. Jackson, gives masterful performances, supported by amazing dialogues and catchphrases. The stunning camerawork offers breathtaking sceneries - at times like from another world - and Morricone’s music is gloomy and cold in a way we haven’t heard for a long time. A quality piece. So you’re just starting to imagine it all, right?
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With such perfect cinematography and the wonderful old-fashioned Ennio Morricone soundtrack, this simply can't go completely wrong; but I was still expecting something more. Quentin Tarantino's repeated love for the Wild West promised to rid itself of all the small flaws that afflicted the otherwise wonderful Django Unchained, but this is a step backwards. The never-ending dialogues about nothing surprisingly often remain never-ending dialogues about nothing, and it is only when the reveals start coming in the second half that the film finally succeeds. The pace never drops, every shot has fatal consequences, and the resolution of the last plot twists even manages to nail you to your seat despite its bloody black humor, proving that this ride was worth it. Still, I would be happy if Quentin moved on from Western-themed stories (or, in this case, half-bred cowgirls) and went somewhere else. Because in the stagecoach chapters, his previously commonplace sins against the audience have started to creep back in, and instead of a symbiosis of the creator and the viewer, his fetish for reference and drawing things out are appearing again after all these years.
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I'm sick and tired of the over-the-top violence in Tarantino's films, and I write this as someone who enjoys Fulci and similar masters of horror gore. Unlike most, I enjoyed the first hour more, with the witty dialogues that, if fleshed out to a greater scope, would have made a fine play. But then Quentin breaks free with his explicit bloody charge and it all goes to hell. This is a symptom in all his recent films, you know exactly what is coming in the next few minutes. Moreover, as the story unfolds, it makes less and less sense, with a verbal diarrhea that feels unnatural thrown at the viewer. Would real characters talk this mechanically? I still can't get enough of Pulp Fiction to this day, it's a masterpiece where everything clicks, but ever since Kill Bill, which was Tarantino's last great film in my eyes, his work has become more and more distant. There's no longer any excitement on my part, just cautious curiosity, and that's a shame.
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A self-indulgent massage of the creative ego, which has grown to manic proportions in the use of epic cinematic toys (Ennio, 70 mm, Nicoreto), all whilst covering itself for three hours with a banal story that commits obscure suicide in the form of the chapter "Earlier that morning," destroying the last vestiges of credibility. The much-maligned first hour is in no way useless, and the snow rascals couldn't have gotten better casting (all of them amazing, but Goggins' Mannix undergoes the most interesting evolution of audience sympathy). Thus, even if common sense starts to politely resist it after all the grand circles, Tarantino proves again how cheap of a whore the audience can be at times and gets hooked by banalities we'd long ago boo others for. If, in the end, you accept the fact that the absence of Quentin's traditional absurdist humor is actually a good thing, you're going to like the film. 4 ½.
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