Rating
Synopsis
A bounty hunter, renowned for delivering his quarry alive, is transporting his latest bounty to the hangman’s noose when he is forced to take shelter from a blizzard at a cabin. However, the other occupants of the cabin are not what they seem and so begins a deadly game of cat and …. well other cats I guess.
MPAA Rating
This movie has been rated R because of two words – Quentin Tarantino
Plot
John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is a bounty hunter who has captured fugitive Daisy Gobberpoo (Jennifer Jason Leigh), or as I later find out, Daisy Domergue! Speak more clearly Kurt!! Domergue is worth $10,000 dead or alive and although much easier to transport as a floppy corpse, Ruth is bringing her in alive to face the hangman in Red Rock – it’s kind of his thing. Doesn’t stop him from punching her in the face every now and …well all the time really. I guess punching women is his “thing” too. Don’t feel bad for her though, she can definitely take a punch and most of her teeth seem to be already gone before old John Ruth gets to her.
On his journey he encounters Major Warren (Samuel L Jackson), another bounty hunter, stranded in the wilderness. With a snow storm on it’s way and because he knows Warren from some dinner party, he agrees to give him a lift on his wagon – with the caveat that he doesn’t go stealing his bounty. That’s all well and good until they find another soul stranded in the wilderness in danger of freezing to death in the impending storm. This lad turns out to be Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), an ex-confederate soldier on his way to Red Rock to become the new sheriff. It turns out that Ruth also knows him – Wyoming is a much smaller place than I thought obviously – and agrees to give him a lift too, but at gun point because he’s a bit of a dickhead.
Arriving at a cabin – Minnie’s Haberdashery – to escape the snow storm, the gents find that the regular inhabitants are nowhere to be found and the new guys are cagey at best. Trapped for 2 days, Ruth and Warren must use a combination of brute ignorance and clever deduction (or is it induction?) to find out who can be trusted and who’s not what they claim.
In classic Tarantino style, you can be sure that the majority of characters’ heads will explode at some point and there will be more than the necessary amount of cussing, guts and “N” words (I’m too polite/white to say it).
Pros
- If you’re a Tarantino buff it’s got plenty of mindless adolescent violence to keep you happy
- If you’re not… well there’s not much else – Jason Leigh is quite good I guess.
Cons
- Typical Tarantino – Why say it in a sentence when an essay will do!
- Plot holes – holier than Mother Teresa at Easter
- Needlessly graphic in places – again typical Tarantino
- Chapters are for books – need I say more?
- Inconsistent narration – it’s like someone accidentally turned on Director’s commentary half way through
- Again – plot holes. Holier than Sonny Corleone in the Godfather 3
- The fact a vintage, irreplaceable Martin guitar got destroyed in the making of this tripe makes things all the worse
Verdict
I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not a Tarantino fan. Pulp Fiction was great. Reservoir Dogs was amazing! After that, meh. I think he lost me about half way through From Dusk Til Dawn. The Hateful Eight is pretty much true to type for Tarantino, mainly going for shock violence, shock language and adolescent humour to try and make you think it’s a good movie. By and large, that seems to be working, with it not only being nominated for 3 Oscars, but actually winning one! I won’t knock the nominees for that though as they performed admirably, to be fair there was little they could do to save this with Tarantino at the helm. I’m not sure where to start on it, but I have a couple of things to say to Mr Tarantino:
- Your movies would be a lot better if you stopped putting yourself in them! The sporadic narration is an unwelcome distraction and does not fit the rest of the movie.
- Stop prioritizing what outdated technology you’re going to use on your movie and focus a little on story continuity and quality
I’m sure he’ll take those words and apply the appropriate amount of heed and respect – or he might just recognize that I’m not qualified to dish out this kind of advice to one of modern day’s giants of directing and just dismiss them. *sigh* 🙁
Seemingly this movie is mainly inspired by The Thing and Reservoir Dogs, and while the influences of both are evident, the movie fails to live up to either – the intrigue and mystery of The Thing isn’t pulled off to the same effect, if anything TH8 is predictable and unimaginative, and the characters aren’t interesting enough to pull off the Reservoir Dogs-esque single location. Don’t even get me started on the damp squib that is the ending.
The general consensus seems to be that Tarantino can plop out any piece of crap he likes now and because he insists on putting it on old timey film reels and using crappy fonts we’re supposed to buy into it like it is some kind of masterpiece. Well, I call bullshit on that. Hateful Eight? It ain’t so great.