Never cheat the hangman…
Written & Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Demian Bichir
The H-Bomb: A few years after the Civil War, bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is escorting a prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the town of Red Rock, Wyoming, where she will hang from the neck until dead. There’s a massive snow storm rolling in, and Ruth’s stagecoach is hustling to make it to town before it hits. However, he does stop the coach, not once, but twice, to pick up two weary travelers he happens upon along the way. The first man rescued from the cold is Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), a former Major in the Union Army who is now, like Ruth, a bounty hunter. The other is Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who claims to be the newly elected sheriff of Red Rock, though he doesn’t have a star or any paperwork to verify this… nor does he seem like the sheriff type.
As it happens, all three men sort of know each other by reputation, and thus their conversations on the way to Red Rock do get a bit tense. The prisoner, Daisy, has a sad tendency to to act up every once in a while, which incurs the wrath of Ruth, which typically entails a punch to the face. Turns out, the coach is not going to make it to Red Rock before the storm rolls in, and our travelers are forced to seek shelter at an isolated haberdashery. The store, however, is not empty, as they find four men are already holed up there, waiting out the storm. They are Englishman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), who happens to be Red Rock’s hang man, cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), who is on his way home to visit his mother, Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir), an employee of the haberdashery who is looking after it while the owner is away, and last but not least, Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), an old Confederate General sitting in a cozy chair by the fire.
Eight strangers brought together by blind fate. Or were they? The storm outside is mighty fierce, these gentlemen, and lady, are going to be hunkered down for at least a couple of days. For Ruth, they’re going to be a couple of sleepless days, because the woman chained to him is worth $10,000, dead or alive. He doesn’t exactly make this a secret, and he smartly assumes that no one in the place is above putting a bullet in his back in order to claim his prize. There’s also the fact that a few of these gentlemen have shared histories together, and that at least one of them is not who he says he is. Needless to say, it’s going to be a hot time in the cold haberdashery tonight…
Upon mentioning that I’ve seen The Hateful Eight, the latest from writer/director/lifelong-film-nut Quentin Tarantino, people have naturally been asking, how was it? Or more specifically, they’ve been asking how is it compared to other Tarantino films. Is it better or worse than Django Unchained? Is it better or worse than Inglourious Basterds, or Kill Bill, or Pulp Fiction? To paraphrase a line from Kill Bill, if you’re going to compare a Tarantino film, compare it to any film that wasn’t made by Tarantino. Meaning, I can’t really pick a best one. Reservoir Dogs is my favorite, for personal reasons, but it’s hardly what I would objectively call his best. Truth is, I can’t really pick which is Tarantino’s best, because I think they’re all equally great (with the single exception of Death Proof, a lazy movie that QT was clearly slumming on).
I think Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction are just as great as Django Unchained, and I think The Hateful Eight is just as brilliant as those. Comparing The Hateful Eight to every other film I’ve seen in the year 2015, I can confidently say The Hateful Eight is my hands down favorite (sorry Mad Max, you have been dethroned). Through and through, this is a Quentin Tarantino film, with all his ticks, quirks, and trademarks on full display. Dialogue scenes will carry on for many, many minutes longer than they would in an ordinary movie. In fact, as was the case in Reservoir Dogs, once we get to the haberdashery, we rarely leave it. This could easily be turned into a stage play.
Much like Basterds or Django, the extended dialogue sequences are shamelessly indulgent and should be boring as hell… except they’re not. Not only am I never bored during the copious amounts of conversing in The Hateful Eight, I am often utterly absorbed by what the characters are saying and where their conversations take them. With each discussion, we glean a bit more information, learning a little more about a given character, often changing what came before. For most other films, the lack of on screen action would be deadly, would be unwatchable… Tarantino has the touch, the gift for writing gab. What people say in his movies is often so funny, or so interesting, or so clever, we just get sucked right in, and often forget that a scene has been going on for fifteen or twenty minutes.
The fact that every single man in that general store is packing heat, means we know that shit will eventually go south, and not every one who walked into that place will walk out alive. With that knowledge in the back of our minds, we get to know these people, even get to care about them, though, as in much of Quentin’s work, there are no good guys. Just bad guys, and worse guys, and any one of them is capable of ending another’s life. For much of the picture’s first half (note, I saw the standard theatrical version, not the 70mm roadshow version, which runs several minutes longer), the characters simply talk over stew or coffee, while silently sizing each other up. Then, roughly midway through the film, it turns into a whodunit, a mystery in which no one can trust anyone else, and from there, it eventually transforms into the typical Tarantino bloodbath. And I mean “typical” in the best way, since his movies never play out in a predictable manner. The aspect people loved most about Pulp Fiction was the sheer unpredictability of it, and that aspect is very much present here. For a film that moves at what most would consider a snail’s pace, it’s astounding how often I found myself on the edge of my seat.
Ever since Kill Bill, Tarantino has been collaborating with the great cinematographer Robert Richardson, who has also shot numerous films for Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone, and dare I say, The Hateful Eight is, visually, their most stunning work together. Every frame of Eight, even the ones soaked in blood, could be hung as paintings, they are that gorgeous. It really makes me want to find a roadshow screening near me and check it out in 70mm, the way Quentin intended it to be seen. Some critics have questioned why he would shoot such a closed off movie that mostly takes place indoors in 70mm? To that I say, don’t these fucking guys get Quentin by this point? He is always breaking rules like that. And when it comes to breaking the rules of convention, no one does it better than Tarantino.
Given that every major role in a Tarantino film is robustly written, his actors often shine. The performers in The Hateful Eight are no exception. Every single one of them is fantastic. Jackson gets a number of great speeches to chew on, including one in which he tells a story about a Confederate soldier he had taken prisoner, that rivals Christopher Walken’s “Gold Watch” monologue from Pulp Fiction in terms of how memorably audacious and outrageous it is. Russell is effectively high strung as the paranoid bounty hunter Ruth, and Roth is a delight as the Englishman who seems just a bit too cheery to be true.
The standouts include Leigh, in a very funny turn as the prisoner, and Goggins, as the loudmouth who claims to be sheriff. Leigh, in particular, is exceptional. We find her Daisy to be entertaining, yet we get the sense that a man really shouldn’t turn his back to her. There is something dangerous, truly deadly, simmering just under the surface of of her bloodied, smiling facade. Dern gets less to do than the other cast members, yet he has his moments, as well. Again though, this entire ensemble is terrific, even a very recognizable face who pops in as a surprise, late in the film, is great.
Like with every Tarantino picture that has come before it, The Hateful Eight is going to have its detractors. Those who just don’t get Quentin’s work (and never will), and those who just can’t handle the more un-PC aspects of his films. Not only are there many utterances of the N-word, there are also numerous acts of violence against women (mostly against one woman, in particular). It’s no worse than what we’ve seen from Quentin in the past, but that won’t stop the SJWs from getting offended on everyone else’s behalf, anyway. Gotta love those folks.
Then there are the restless types, whose minds will start to wander if a scene of dialogue lasts longer than thirty seconds or so, and who will get bored if there isn’t an explosion/chase/shootout happening every five minutes. In other words, some will find The Hateful Eight dull. Don’t pay these people any mind, they are the ones who make each successive Transformers movie a bigger hit than the last. If you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s work, and you know if you are by now, than you absolutely owe it to yourself to see The Hateful Eight, sooner rather than later, because, much like every single one of Tarantino’s films that isn’t Death Proof, it is a goddamn masterpiece.
