Movie Reaction: The Hateful Eight

Formula: Reservoir Dogs * Django Unchained

Cast: The Eight, I believe, are Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggons, Demian Bechir, Tim Roth*, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern, although James Parks is there too most of the time, making it actually nine. A couple other familiar faces show up but I'll let the opening credits spoil that surprise.

*I've spent the whole time leading up to this movie assuming that Tim Roth is Christoph Waltz. I know it's wrong now, but I still stand by it.

Plot: John "the Hang Man" Ruth (Russell) is a bounty hunter transporting known killer, Daisy Domergue (Leigh), to the town of Red Rock to be hanged. He meets another bounty hunter (Jackson) and new sheriff of Red Rock (Goggins) on the way to a haberdashery, where a blizzard traps them with four other men for a couple days. As every last trailer says, one of these me is not who he says he is.Who survives?

Thoughts:
It's not saying much, but this is my favorite Quinten Tarantino movie since Reservoir Dogs. This shouldn't be at all surprising because this is incredibly similar to Reservoir Dogs in structure. I like that I can always tell when a movie is a Tarantino movie. All his favorite things are there. The cast is full of regular collaborators. The visual style is distinctive. He loves the violence as well as getting as many of his actors to say the n-word as possible. The story is explicitly divided into chapters, which is a very Tarantino move. What I'm trying to say is that if you've liked his other seven movies, no worries here.

This is not a short movie. It's nearly three hours. While I don't think it would take much to cut out 30 minutes of it, the pacing is still great. It didn't feel like it was that long. He lets scenes breathe, which is natural for the type of movie it is. The way events unfold has that same anarchy that Tarantino is famous for. No one is safe. That's all I have to say about that.

No surprise, all the actors are having a blast. The best way I can describe it is it's like going a murder mystery party, but all the characters are played by professional actors. First among equals though is Jennifer Jason Leigh who doubles down on how rotten and disgusting a person she can be.

I'm disappointed that I didn't get a chance to see the 70mm cut of this. Even as a digital projection though, this is a beautiful movie. The set is rich an detailed. It didn't feel like a set. It felt like they found an actual 1860s haberdashery and filmed there.

Elephant in the Room: C'mon. You never like Tarantino movies. What's the catch? Look, I don't go out to dislike his movies, and I wouldn't say I dislike most of them. Only Kill Bill Vol. 2 I couldn't finish. It's more that I don't understand the esteem he's held in. Both Django and Inglourious Basterds overstayed their welcomes. The Hateful Eight doesn't. It was just entertaining.

To Sum Things Up:
A strong collection of good performances, by highly credentialed actors, working off a great script, The Hateful Eight is all the things that I like about Tarantino with very little of the things that annoy me about him (like him adding himself as a character).

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend