This is How Movies Should Be Made

Charming and brutal

An Exercise In Nonsense

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Script: ok but needed serious editing Scenery: fabulous Set: brilliant Acting: outstanding Gratuitous violence: abundant Length of movie: a third as long as it needed to be Suspense: not present Tension: present but not often Sympathy for characters: none Ending: satisfactory Verdict: watch it and make up your own mind

Before seeing the hateful eight, if you were to offer me a Tarantino movie, set in western times about a group of characters trapped inside a cabin and having to bounce off each other with signature Tarantino dialogue and writing, I would have bitten your hand off! Unfortunately, the Hateful Eight doesn't get good until the second half of the movie, where Samuel L Jackson delivers an iconic, hilarious monologue that rivals the likes of Jules' "vengeance" speech in pulp fiction. After this point, the Tarantino-isms truly kick into gear, and the suspense, the wit, the gore, and the characters truly shining and being some of Tarantino's best work, with Warren and Mannix being the stand-outs. However, what makes this film so frustrating is the incredibly tiresome, boring, and irrelevant first half, which definitely should have been cut down, not only to make the film better over all, but to increase the rewatch value. Out of all the Tarantino movies I've seen so far, I feel I am least likely to revisit this one, with its nearly 3 hour run time and monotonous first half, which feels like another writer trying to imitate Tarantino's style, rather than an actual Tarantino movie. If you were to take one thing from this review, I would say completely skip the first hour and 20 minutes or so to where Samuel L Jackson delivers a speech about his "big black pecker" and watch the chaos from there! But because of that first half, I feel the Hateful Eight is one of Tarantino's weaker projects, or at the very least the most frustrating.

... Is that Tarantino over-rated the main protagonists' charm. After we see the "good guys beat cuffed women, we kind of root for the "bad guys", who are much more sympathetic, even after the saloon's previous massacre.A special comment on Leigh, that offers an astounding performence as a white trash desperado - she also sings quite well. She blew me away, and is now one of my favorite actress. Excellent casting choice for Tarantino. The other actors are all doing fine.This is, without any doubt, an excellent movie that will become a classic. Yes, there's too much "Tarantian racism", but even then, it isn't out of place with the context. This is a movie that slowly goes down like a glass of brandy near the fireplace.

In the wild west shortly after the U.S. Civil War, an oddball gang of characters end up sharing space in a stagecoach lodge during a wicked Wyoming blizzard. They include bounty hunters, a wanted murderer, an alleged sheriff, an alleged hangman, a former Confederate general, and other mysterious guests who arise suspicion. The movie is written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.In regard to movie storytelling and execution, I have little doubt that Tarantino is a genius. I also have little doubt that he is a sadist.His films can end up with different results depending on how much the mean-spirited violence overwhelms his brilliance. When the violence was minimal (that is, in Tarantino terms), the brilliance clearly won out with the creation of such great films as "Pulp Fiction", "Inglorious Basterds", and "Django Unchained".Then, there were the two movies in the "Kill Bill" series where the violence was often sickening and overwhelming. This situation recurs in "The Hateful Eight".Firstly, the pluses of which there are many:With the aid of music by Ennio Morricone and cinematography by Robert Richardson, Tarantino succeeds in evoking a hell-on-earth created by its inhabitants.Storywise, there are many moments of mystery, plot twists, suspense, and extended moments of tense dialogue. While Tarantino's stories are always filled with violence, they are always engaging. And most of all, compared to many other screenwriters, his stories are always understandable. They can be complex without being confusing.There are two frequents sources of criticism about this movie but I will actually come to the movie's defense. One is that the movie is too long especially in the middle. I agree that it could have been shortened but the tension was always present in the middle scene leading the viewer to believe (rightly so) that this was only a build-up.The other criticism was against the inclusion of a scene that is a flashback. I felt this scene added to the film's impact. It helped solve the mystery of the backgrounds of some of the characters. It also allowed us to see other characters who had previously been spoken of only in reference. The best part of the scene is that it provided us with kind and friendly characters who interacted well with others. This was a welcome respite from the uniformly vile characters that infested the movie's first half.And the acting is great. Standout performances come from Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Bruce Dern.It's in the end when things get overly brutal and mean-spirited especially the fate of one character who had already been subject to an excess of degradation. The act itself and the image of its aftermath were hard to get out of my mind well after the movie's end. I guess it's now time for a schlocky rom-com to rebalance my senses.