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Posted by on Jan 2, 2016 in Blog, Movie Reviews | 1 comment

Where Does “The Hateful Eight” Rate Among Quentin Tarantino Films? (Movie Review)

 

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“The Hateful Eight” gets billed as writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s eighth feature film.

Where does it rank?

Arguably, it’s his least-gratifying effort yet.  Once again, Tarantino reheats his all-too-familiar leftovers that were once tasty and original, but with each heaping pile of pointless provocation and gratuitous violence have become increasingly stale and way too predictable.

Clocking in at an excruciating running time of 2 hours and 47 minutes, but which seems unnecessarily longer at various stages, Tarantino’s second straight western following Django Unchained(2012) plays out like a garish ripoff of Sergio Leone.  Not content with taking inspiration and building upon what’s been done previously by the late Italian film icon who introduced “Spaghetti Westerns” in the 1960s, Tarantino’s self-admitted reverence for this hallowed cinematic territory is little more than a fruitless imitation of far better reincarnates of the same genre made earlier.  Likely, his intentions were noble.  However, Tarantino is severely lacking in both subtlety and nuance.  The script, which he wrote, also could have used a few more drafts.  Like every character onscreen, the audience too ends up getting bludgeoned with scenes and dialogue which are clearly intended for shock value, but which leave us numb and unresponsive by the time this senseless exercise has ended.

The Hateful Eight is scripted into five acts.  The story takes place in Wyoming, high up in the snowy Rocky Mountains during an intense winter blizzard just a few years after the Civil War.  Bounty hunters and bandits end up face-to-face inside the cozy confines of a log cabin, who come together while taking refuge from the storm.  But the wooden walls are hardly a sanctuary for comfort and solitude.  The cabin becomes a deadly compound of gun-slinging gladiators.

Posing a challenge somewhat to the tested patience of viewers, two of the film’s nearly three hours take place inside a single room.  These tight confines make this seem more like a stage play than the usual grand theatrical spectacle we’ve come to expect from Tarantino.  At various times, this intentional claustrophobia does prove effective.  It forces the characters into direct confrontations whether they so desire or not, mounting tension from which we’re able to learn more about them as their stories slowly unfold.  As we inch frame-by-frame towards what we know will be the inevitable violent shootout, we’re not quite sure who’s good versus evil, nor which character is conspiring with whom to steal the prize.  At times, it’s even hard to tell who we should be cheering for.

Making matters worse, our patience gets severely tested with excessive and unnecessary posturing, both from the actors and a hammy director who often tries to be too edgy.  Consider the opening credits which include a pointless visual frame with the camera fixated on a cross buried beneath snow, which apparently lacks any relevance to the story.  We also get knocked over the head with extraneous profanity to the point we don’t even notice it anymore.  The word “nigger” gets used perhaps 100 times when perhaps a dozen or so would have sufficed.  Then, there’s a hand-written letter carried in the breast pocket of one of the bounty hunters which becomes entwined into the plot (the contents of which won’t be revealed here) which leaves everyone shaking their heads while asking themselves, “what was that all about?”

Once again, Tarantino casts some of his favorite actors in key roles, most notably Samuel L. Jackson who gets the most memorable lines and chews up much of the screen time.  Jackson is in top form, playing yet another over-the-top quagmire of moral contradictions sure to be cheered by some and reviled by others.  Tim Roth and Michael Madsen (badly miscast here, by the way) also round out Tarantino’s encore casting.  As with all of his previous movies, virtually all characters are macho-males or testosterone-tough women who obsessively adore cursing and committing ceaseless acts of violence.

Tarantino has a penchant for raising and rescuing long-forgotten actors from the career junkyard.  Just as he’s previously done with Harvey Keitel (“Reservoir Dogs”), John Travolta (“Pulp Fiction”), Pam Greer (“Jackie Brown”), now it’s Kurt Russell’s turn to shine, who hasn’t made a good movie in well….like….ever.  Fu-Manchu to the hilt, Russell does an admirable job playing a somewhat sympathetic bounty hunter who’s escorting a wanted female prisoner played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who gets rounded up for $10,000 in reward money.

Characteristic of Tarantino’s films, the texturing here is magnificent — sadly — making this even more of a wasted effort.  Credit the cinematographer, three-time Academy Award winner Robert Richardson for creating a steady collection of visuals that are both bloody and beautiful to look at.  Although I didn’t see the film in 70 mm, as was originally intended by the filmmakers (there’s even been some controversy about “The Hateful Eight” being given access to theaters where such technology exists), one assumes the pastels of the giant screen are even more perfect in their purposed original form.

Getting back to the classic films of Leone, Tarantino somehow managed to get the great music composer Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) to come out of retirement score various parts of the film.  Now at age 87, that’s quite a feat worthy of praise.  However, there’s not nearly enough of Morricone’s old magic to salvage a tedious script and futile ending which doesn’t blow us away so much as lull us into a slumber.  By the final note and last credit, we were ready to leave the movie theater at least 45 minutes earlier.

In an attempt to pay homage to the past, “The Hateful Eight” lacks any sense of originality.  Tarantino has plowed under and bulldozed his way over this all-too-familiar territory several times already, which turns this into a giant dust bowl of disappointment.  Yeah, we get that Tarantino is a master of crafting ceaseless violence, scripting long-winded speeches, and making stars out of brainless badasses and washed-up loners — tall tales guided by a bent moral compass that gets smashed with a sledgehammer.  We totally get it.  When it comes to hacking off arms and legs and blowing heads off of bodies — he’s the best since Sam Peckinpah.  But, it’s time to move on.  Graduation time was five movies ago.

Seemingly stuck at age 22, Tarantino remains trapped within his own film class.  The bell rang a long time ago, yet he remains at his desk, dutifully fixated on his next movie project — something that will probably be another violent remake of a classic filmmaker.

Been there.  Done that, already — too many times before.

Quentin Tarantino’s films (which he wrote and directed) ranked:

  1. Pulp Fiction
  2. Jackie Brown
  3. Reservoir Dogs
  4. Django Unchained
  5. Inglourious Basterds
  6. The Hateful Eight
  7. Kill Bill:  Volume I
  8. Kill Bill II:  Volume II

 

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1 Comment

  1. The Hateful Eight is an absolute Horrific movie that I have ever seen. My husband and I saw this with another couple and we were surprised how poor the writing, acting and filming was. It’s nothing but a bloody mess…literally!!!
    This is not a movie for any age. Sorry Tarantino, I think you need to ask yourself what makes good entertainment for family or anyone. I can’t even give this a one star. We we’re very disappointed.

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