The Hateful Eight

MOVIE TITLE: The Hateful Eight

DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino

YEAR: 2015

GENRE: Western Thriller

RATING: R for violence, swearing, nudity, and rape

GRADE: Pass

A blizzard hits Wyoming in the middle of bounty hunter John Ruth transporting his $10,000 captive Daisy Domergue to Red Rock to be executed. After his stagecoach picks up two extra passengers along the way, Major Marquis Warren and Sheriff Chris Mannix, the travelers are forced to hunker down in a lodge together with other suspicious characters until the blizzard passes over. As the strangers get to know each other, not everyone can keep their stories straight and it leads to paranoid distrust. Bodies begin piling up until their paranoia tapers, which means Daisy’s chances of escaping execution increase even more.

Just like with any other Quentin Tarantino movie, every character is developed through realistic, gritty, and vulgar dialogue. It’s not just cursing and slurs for the sake of edginess. Everything said in this movie has a purpose and nothing goes to waste. This is especially true when Marquis is telling old man Sandy Smithers how the latter’s son died at the former’s hands. It’s also true when John Ruth tells stories about how he prefers to hang his bounties rather than give them an easy route to death. And it’s true again when Chris Mannix brags about his father’s renegade army of confederate remnants fighting for a dying cause. None of the characters’ back stories or present actions make them appear sympathetic, I’ll admit, but if we were meant to sympathize with them, the movie wouldn’t be called the Hateful Eight. This is classic Tarantino storytelling at its apex.

I also must commend the musicianship of Ennio Morricone, who provided most of the soundtrack for this movie. Whenever a feeling of impending doom or hard justice needs to be experienced by the audience, Morricone’s music will make them believe in the brutality they’re seeing onscreen. He has a legendary track record of providing fantastic scores for western movies, so recruiting him was a natural fit on Tarantino’s part. I’m not sure if the Hateful Eight’s soundtrack has been released as a CD or digital album, but if it hasn’t, then it’s a crime. Classical music never goes out of style and even if it did, it can always be revived by conductors like Morricone.

Tarantino movies could be criticized for dragging themselves out too long or being overindulgent in their exposition through dialogue, but in the case of the Hateful Eight, I don’t agree with that sentiment at all. Everything had its place. Every conversation had its own feeling of drama and excitement. If you watch Tarantino movies just for the brutality, you might have to wait a while, but it’ll be worth it in the end. Think of the conversations as the slow build and the violence as the major crescendo in a symphony of masterful filmmaking. I wouldn’t lump John Ruth punching and elbowing Daisy in with that symphony since it was disturbing to watch and out of context it would make John Ruth look like a jerk. Yes, your butt will go numb as you go through this two and a half hour long masterpiece, but when you’re kicking it in the Caribbean, you’ll be saying to yourself, “Marcellus Wallace was right.” Wait a minute, wrong movie! But you get the idea.

While this movie isn’t anything earth shattering, it is a piece of art to be admired and rewatched just to soak in the talents of everybody involved. Samuel L. Jackson was undoubtedly the show stealer when it came to the acting. Ennio Morricone’s music is always heaven on the ears. The story itself can be easily pieced together once the movie draws to its conclusion. All in all, there’s not much to complain about even with the lengthy screen time and the scenes where Daisy gets punched (despite the fact that she too is an unsympathetic villain). A passing grade will go to this modern day Tarantino classic!