Movie Review - The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight **1/2 (out of 5) (R) It had to happen eventually. I’ve loved Quentin Tarantino’s first seven movies – many of them equally so on repeat viewings. But this post-Civil War western only earns a mild nod. He’s written a good 100-minute suspense tale, but wrapped it in a bloated three-hour package. His attempted homage to big-screen epics of the 1950s delivers more form than substance, diluting the merits of the script, characters and dialog he created.

Portents of disappointment open the proceedings. The score from legendary Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, among a zillion Spaghetti Westerns; some of the highlight moments in Tarantino’s last two hits – Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained) is so lacking in any of his signature flair, one wonders why anyone thought it deserved an overture? Although the subject is bounty hunters and their quarry in a time dominated by racial and North-South resentments from deep, fresh wounds, there’s no relation to Django. Samuel L. Jackson was a slave in the other, but stars as an ex-cavalry bounty hunter now, loosely allied with Kurt Russel, and variably connected to terrific character actor Walton Goggins. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Russell’s psychotic prisoner with such insane venom one may forget the rest of her body of work. Charlize Theron’s frumping to portray Aileen Wuornos in Monster wasn’t as extreme a transition.

As groups of travelers finds themselves stranded in a Wyoming stagecoach depot during a blizzard, the suspense comes from who may be lying about their identities and reasons for being there, and who’s gonna did because of it. Tim Roth delivers a fine impression of Christoph Waltz’ Django character affecting a cultured British accent. The foul language and graphic bloodshed appear in suitable doses, but their impact is reduced by needless stretches of dialog and scenery. After Django, this one is a relative clunker. The constant use of the N-word and other ethnic epithets may be accurate for the time and characters depicted, but without the energy and rooting interests we felt throughout Django, that element of the dialog packs little punch.

In its better moments, we still get some of the wit and edginess we expect from Tarantino. But this blizzard buries more than the landscape. (12/25/15)