Movie review: Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’

Quentin Tarantino certainly knows how to grab attention.

His latest film, The Hateful Eight, has been the source of controversy for much of the year. The director threatened to scuttle the whole thing after an early script was leaked online, and he later demanded that his near-three-hour epic be shown in 70 MM Panavision — with an intermission — where at all possible.

As with his last film, Django Unchained, the bombastic Tarantino still has no qualms about wading into issues of race in America, a topic that remains as polarizing as they come. Throw in the usual Tarantino tropes of sudden spasms of bloody violence with enough profanity to make David Mamet blush and The Hateful Eight is an easy film to admire for its creator’s singular and distinct vision. But it’s tough movie to love.

The roadshow edition of Hateful — which is how Tarantino prefers it to be seen — is a throwback to the ’50s and early ’60s when big films like Ben Hur and Cleopatra were treated more like stage plays or operas, with a prologue and intermission. These movies were events.

Hateful apes that with a musical prologue, featuring the score from legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone, as well as the intermission. Adding to the allure is that Tarantino, along with cinematographer Robert Richardson, make the film look as if it is indeed from a previous era.

This is all really cool but the problem is that The Hateful Eight, underneath all the newsworthy layers and Tarantino flourishes, isn’t all that compelling a story.

Set in a snowy corner of the mountain West in the post-Civil War 1800s, it traps bounty hunters John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and Maj. Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) in a cabin with Ruth’s foul-mouthed prisoner/punching bag, Daisy (a go-for-broke Jennifer Jason Leigh), racist Confederate sheriff Chris Mannix (the always excellent Walton Goggins), Confederate Gen. Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) and three others — Bob (Demian Bichir), Joe (Michael Madsen), Oswaldo (Tim Roth) — who may or may not be who they say they are.

Everyone knows that with this setup, and with Tarantino at the helm, these eight characters aren’t just going to roast marshmallows until the weather clears. Still, with a tighter edit the film might have generated more tension; the first half is especially slow-going.

As for the racial politics, Tarantino’s “can’t we all just get along after we massacre a few people in this room” message and throwing the n-word around like it’s confetti isn’t particularly profound. His message might carry more weight if the film was set in contemporary America instead of, as here and in Django, in the safe haze of the past. In that sense, Spike Lee’s wildly adventurous Chi-Raq is more rewarding.

There are some funny, biting lines and it’s a hoot to see the likes of Dern, Russell, Jackson, Goggins and Jason Leigh riffing off each other. As usual, Jackson earns the spotlight though he has played this kind of character many times before. And the entire 70MM effort seems wasted since much of the film takes place inside a single room.

Still, there’s nothing else out there like The Hateful Eight. It just could have been something more.

Exclusive: AMC Parks at Arlington; AMC NorthPark, Dallas; Cinemark West Plano; opens wide Dec. 31

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Movie review: Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’."