Tarantino's 'The Hateful 8' - reviewed

"Quentin Tarantino's Eighth Film" had gained plenty of attention before production even began with the script being leaked online, and the writer/director announcing he was going to abandon the project before it was shot...he then hosted a live read of the script which seemed to re-ignite his enthusiasm for the project. Filming was soon underway, and as 2015 came to an end and the film was being released, a pristine Oscar viewing copy found its way online along with a number of other high profile releases, although the video pirates publicly apologized for posting Tarantino's movie. (No, they didn't apologize for any of the others). As with any of QT's movies its release also sparked plenty of attention for various reasons including its content in terms of language and violence, and in the UK - as we've noted - key cinema chains refusing to screen it.

But is it actually any good? Impact's Hong Kong Editor Mike Leeder was first in line...

The Hateful Eight could best be described as a 'Western-Mystery', with eight strangers seeking refuge from a blizzard in a 'Stagecoach Stopover', shortly after the American Civil War. Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern are the eight strangers whose lives will be forever changed by the events of that fateful evening...

The story takes place over six chapters with a total running time of between 167 and 187 minutes depending on which version you get to see (and ideally with an intermission at some point in the proceedings as its' a 'tad' too long! Yes it's good, but I do feel that its over-indulgent with regards to that running time, It's heavy going to sit through a near three-hour movie (and purists may hate me for saying this, BUT...) I think a good hour could have been lost from the theatrical version and then perhaps restored for DVD, Blu-ray etc.

I can see the staged reading working very well, as it does very much feel like a 'staged' performance piece... you can imagine it being a very impressive play with a bit of streamlining. The dialogue is very good and there's a number of memorable monologues that I can see the attraction of with regards to the actors involved although there's no real Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs-styled one liners this time round. This is a long long wordy piece of art, and art it certainly is. But it's too artistic and a tad pretentious at times, almost feeling like every scene is “look this is great writing, this is a stand out moment'. There are plenty of those moments, perhaps too many which detracts from the power of both the dialogue an the performances. Yes, as per the controversy there is a lot of use of the N-word, which may be historically accurate but (a la Django Unchained) it does just seem far too excessive... perhaps that's part of the plan to use it so much, so it loses its negative power... but it still seems too much.

Performance-wise Kurt Russell, Samuel L Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh get the lions-share of the spotlight and all of them give it their all. It's great to see Jennifer Jason Leigh (with whom I fell in love way back when she was in Fast Times At Ridgemont High and who has given so many strong performances in all manner of projects) being given such a key role in such a high profile project. Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern give their best with very capable support, while the rest of the actors in the film (including some very familiar faces, some of whom you'll recognize like Zoe Bell) are from other QT movies, though basically cameos.

Once again Samuel L Jackson is given a very memorable character to play, a bounty hunter at a time when his character's colour was as controversial as the language, and much is made of the characters ethnicity. But you'd need a hell of a memory to be able to recite his dialogue from this film, its not “Ezekiel 25:17” which QT had actually bastardized from its use in the American edit of Sonny Chiba's The Bodyguard... this time round it's Jackson reciting a quasi-speech  that goes on for a good ten minutes or so......

As I've said... I liked the movie, and its great to see it doing well at the box office. But I think it'll do even better on blu-ray and dvd where you can watch it in segments, maybe a chapter at a time; where you can enjoy the dialogue and the performances and the events and let them sink in - the sheer length of the current version at the cinema was something of an overload for me.

So, if you're expecting a movie like Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill or even Django Unchained, it might not be the movie you are expecting - if you want to see a very dialogue-driven movie that has echoes of John Cassavetes work, imbued with a Western setting (and you are ready for a more theatrical than cinematic slice of entertainment which doesn't rely on SFX but just lets its actors run with the dialogue and more), then you'll get a whole lot more out of it.