The Hateful Eight

Here without protest is Quentin Tarantino, delivering another quotable display of ultra-violence. This is The Hateful Eight, a film which internet pirates nearly killed when they leaked the screenplay. But it's now time for these characters to do some killing.

Years after the Civil War, bounty hunters Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and John Ruth (Kurt Russell) deliver justice their ways. Warren prefers to shoot down outlaws where they stand, while Ruth prefers to let the hangman deal with his quarry. One day, they get on the same stagecoach together. Warren has three dead outlaws in his custody, while Ruth has Daisy Dommergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a live and very-bitter murderess. Their destination is the town of Red Rock, whose new sheriff, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), also joins them.

A nasty blizzard forces them to seek shelter at a lodge called Minnie's Haberdashery. There, they meet Red Rock's hangman, Oswaldo (Tim Roth), a cowboy named Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a Mexican named Bob (Demián Bichir), and an old general named Samford Sanders (Bruce Dern). Ruth doesn't want anyone to come between him and the $10,000 on Daisy's head. But it turns out somebody wants to do just that. Maybe more than one...

Tarantino, that old movie enthusiast, made his latest film into a roadshow presentation. Yes, the format made famous by such epic movies as Ben-Hur and The Sound of Music, is alive and well. The ultra wide, Ultra Panavision 70 cinematography by Robert Richardson results in truly epic shots of snow-covered Colorado. There's even an overture and intermission to push the film to a whopping 187 minutes. The overture and intermission are absent in the general release edition, which I saw, which runs a still massive 167 minutes.

There's a reason why the roadshow format died out: more and more of these films became long, expensive dullards. The Hateful Eight is long, but it's neither expensive ($44 million) nor dull. The cast brings life to their misanthropic, brutal characters. We even feel sorry for these pieces of work at certain points, such as when Ruth abuses Daisy (and he does that a lot). Their dialogue, even if it's a ten minute monologue, builds up the tension in every word. Their brutal deaths are shocking, sometimes quick, sometimes blackly humorous (how much blood can a man vomit when he drinks arsenic? a lot).

The aforementioned overture and intermission, along with the rest of the film's score, was by the revered Ennio Morricone. His dark, eerie themes are sure to remind one of his work on multiple spaghetti westerns and The Thing. It even uses unused tracks from the latter! The end result is a dark, moody score that fits the film's grand scale. It's another winner for the 87-year-old composer.

The Hateful Eight is not for people who are turned off by ultra violence, unapologetic displays of racism and sexism, and extreme movie lengths. If you can get past that, you'll find a suspenseful locked room mystery thriller. The screenplay and characters are sure to keep your eyes on the screen. Before you know it, the extreme length will go by quick.