By Marc S. Sanders
Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, The Hateful Eight, has the signature director’s fingerprints all over, but it still stands apart from the rest thanks to a lurid, foreboding soundtrack from Ennio Morricone with an Agatha Christie narrative approach.
During a post-Civil War period, near the mountaintops of Wisconsin, an image of a crucifixion post is blanketed in snow as a stagecoach races past. The cold symbol spells doom. The coach is stopped by a curious, well-dressed man in the middle of the road. This is Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson), a legendary black Union veteran, now bounty hunter. With a fierce blizzard on its way, the Major convinces another bounty hunter, who has paid for the coach, to hitch a ride. That man is John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and he’s escorting his ten-thousand-dollar bounty, a black-eyed unsavory Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to her hanging in the nearby town of Red Rock. A would-be sheriff of that town eventually hitches a ride as well, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). The coach has to take shelter from an oncoming blizzard at Minnie’s Haberdashery, where four other men are already holed up. They are Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), the charming British hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), Cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) and the giant like Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir). Tarantino has invented another collection of seedy two-dimensional characters whose unique appearances and vocal inflections set them apart from the rest of the gang respectively. Still, they are interesting enough.
The first celebrated performer of the piece is Morricone’s Oscar winning soundtrack which is totally eerie, sinister and immersive. I go back to that carved out wooden image of Christ hanging from the cross and covered in snow. Morricone’s music replays the same notes but with more intensity each time it starts up again. It’s as if the Devil is luring us into his hellish lair. If the famed Conductor’s chords could speak it would start with “Once upon a time, on a dark and stormy night…”
Twists of fate await all of these men and the one woman. Like a mystery from Dame Agatha, the characters are set up for introduction to each other, with a little bit of back story. The ones that especially stand out belong to Major Warren who possesses a personalized letter from President Abraham Lincoln himself. The curious question of what could possibly merit a ten-thousand-dollar bounty for a small woman like Daisy is the other mystery I initially take notice of. Once everyone is gathered at Minnie’s Haberdashery, how will these people intersect with one another?
The Hateful Eight plays like a short story you might find in a Reader’s Digest. Taratino might correct me and insist that more specifically it would be found in a magazine of lurid subject matter – pulp fiction. Go figure. It is a theme he sticks to and continues to reinvent himself with each passing film. The creativity comes in the new situations he constructs for his players. He’s placed his figures in another kind of western by this point already. He’s applied them to an alternate kind of Nazi occupied Europe during the second world war. He’s updated swordplay in a zippy Dojo. Now, he inserts his personalities into primarily a single setting, like Christie did time and again.
Clues are uncovered as the film moves on to indicate that something may have happened here, before the stagecoach arrived. There’s a broken door that needs to be nailed shut each time it is crashed opened. A jellybean? A chess board sits in front of the General and appears to be in the middle of a game. And where is Minnie and Sweet Dave, the caretakers? The Major positions himself as the detective and within the small confines of this log cabin suspicions will reveal more about how the men and Daisy are connected and why they are here, now, while a harsh, unforgiving blizzard rages on outside.
The dialogue of The Hateful Eight is not as memorable as other Tarantino scripts. Yet, the characters are just as colorful, and there are a couple of zips in time to keep you alert when a new development surfaces. Tarantino is not shy about the bloodshed either. The violence plays like most of his other films with a kind of slapstick twist. A character gets violently ill and vomits blood all over Daisy. That’s after a couple of wallops to the nose and jaw, plus a face full of stew that she’s had to endure as John Ruth’s handcuffed prisoner. Later, someone’s brains splatter all over her.
None of the guys are standard cowboys of the Old West either. Goggins plays a good-natured dimwit. Jackson is impervious to the racial name calling. Russell is a cranky old grunt. Your grandfathers did not take your fathers to Saturday matinee “ride ‘em into the sunset” westerns like these. This is the most garish of material, and as in your face as it is, it’s also quite entertaining.
Tarantino has definitely graduated from the simplicity of his first films, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. The production value of The Hateful Eight is phenomenal. Originally, I saw this movie in theaters with a couple of my Cinemaniac buddies. Tarantino was proud to present it on 70mm Panavision film, complete with some intrusive lines and occasional burn spots. Don’t tell me if this was not shot on location. I don’t want to know. I treasure the illusion. The deep snow-covered Wisconsin mountains are glorious to look at. I feel completely absorbed in the setting with the harsh whispers of chilly winds happening outside as the dark blue of the snowstorm can be seen through the cabin windows. This may be Quentin Tarantino’s most atmospheric film to date.
This movie has a running time of three hours, but I strongly recommend to watch it without stopping. The blu ray was a Hanukkah gift from my wife, and I tried watching the night before, but I kept having to pause it to struggle with a cold I’m currently fighting. I only made it to “Chapter Four: Domergue’s Got A Secret.” The next day, I told myself to start it from the beginning while everyone was out of the house and the experience was very fulfilling as Tarantino’s wintery day moves into night and then finally reaches its bloody conclusion.
The Hateful Eight works like a graphic novel come to life. It’s a great late-night rainy-day kind of picture. If you haven’t seen it or it’s been a while since the last time, like it was for me, then I recommend checking it out during this winter season. Trust me. It just wouldn’t play as well on a hot summer night in July. Quentin Tarantino and his cast work better when they are at their most cold blooded.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 