The Weinstein Company
Quentin Tarantino is one my favorite directors, because he does it like nobody else. He has a kind of twisted genius combining pastiche, homage, and spectacle to make some of the best movies of the last two decades. My feeling is that Inglorious Basterds is the best movie of them all, but Pulp Fiction will always be the most fun for me. Kill Bill had a few heavy scenes, but not much; it wasn’t until Basterds and Django Unchained that he delved into some very dark places. So how much darker can he get while still keeping that Tarantino charm?
The Hateful Eight is Quentin Tarantino’s eighth movie and takes place in wintry Wyoming a few years after the Civil Year ended. The movie is split, in classic Tarantino style, into five separate “chapters.” As the movie starts with a beautiful shot of snowy mountains, we see a stagecoach slowly come into view. We soon discover it carries bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his bounty, a murderer and crazy lady, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). In short order, they stop to give rides to (and effectively save the lives of) fellow bounty hunter and famed black Civil War office Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who was a part of a regiment of pro-Confederate renegades causing havoc after the war ended.
Naturally there’s reasons to hate people, lies and secrets, paranoia and confusion. We learn more about these characters as they travel together to the nearest outpost on their way to deliver their bounties to Red Rock, a place called Minnie’s Haberdashery. It’s Tarantino, so the dialogue is tense and crisp, giving us instant connection to these four people. And we begin to learn that none of these folk are particularly “good,” as even Union soldier Warren has done some heinous things, Mannix is a vile racist, Domergue is a crazy murdering racist, and Ruth, well, he’s complicated.
But the movie is called The Hateful Eight, so we know at least four more people are coming. We see the others at the Haberdashery, all with secrets, none of which we know for sure who’s lying or telling the truth. There’s Bob the Mexican (Demian Bichir), who claims to be taking over for Minnie while she’s off visiting relatives. Tim Roth (from way back in Reservoir Dogs) plays someone calling himself Oswaldo Mobray and the new hangman of Red Rock. Another Tarantino mainstay, Michael Madsen, plays Joe Gage, a taciturn and gruff cowboy, and famed character actor Bruce Dern plays old veteran Confederate General Sanford Smithers.
John Ruth expects trouble, and Marquis Warren knows some of these folk are extremely racist. So what follows is a slow boil of mystery, bloodshed, violence, and a lot of dialogue. Classic Tarantino of course. What I really want to do is delve into the symbolism, metaphors, and themes, but I don’t want to spoil the movie. Finding out the twists is half the fun after all. I will say that there are a few things I can discuss.
There is a bubbling cauldron of hatred and pain running through the movie, the leftover anger and racism running through in the post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Whether or not Tarantino is explicitly calling our attention to parallels in the modern era I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s there. These are all “hateful” characters, monsters in one way or another. Some are worse, certainly, but the movie plays around with narrative conventions to give us empathy and disdain for each character in turn.
This is an ensemble movie and one of the best of the year. There are the titular eight, all excellent, but there are a few specific notes. Demian Bichir brings a lot of comedy and character to someone who speaks very little, and Bruce Dern has subtle depth as a man with depths of hatred. I can’t ignore Kurt Russell and his killer John Wayne impression, simultaneously impressive and secretly vitriolic. But the three big performances here are Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson, and Walton Goggins. Jennifer Jason Leigh is just superb as the intense and insane spitfire, her little asides and quips beautifully connecting us to such a hateful person.
Walton Goggins is fantastic and frenetic, going through a fascinating set of arcs in the movie, biting the scenery in a way few can. And naturally Samuel L. Jackson is electric as the complicated pseudo protagonist Warren, clever but filled with deadly secrets, the closest thing the film has to a heroic character. But nobody’s a real hero here. It’s just shades of villainy.
This is a shockingly beautiful movie, with snowy majesty easily comparable to The Revenant, and characterizations as rich as any Tarantino movie so far. It’s not as funny as some of his movies, but it doesn’t need to be. Don’t be shocked by what this movie is, though.
It’s violent and gory and filled with racial epithets. But it’s not about comedic epithets here, you’re meant to feel the discomfort and the omnipresent racism. I’m not sure of the underlying message is important, treacly, or both. Eventually I’ll need to watch it again to really figure out what I think, other than I really like it.
The Hateful Eight has a running time of 2 hours 48 minutes and is rated R for strong bloody violence, a scene of violent sexual content, language and some graphic nudity.
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