Review: The Hateful Eight

The eighth film by Quentin Tarantino is a hilarious hothouse whodunit that is typically generous in its bloodletting and thrillingly perverse in execution. The Hateful Eight is pure Tarantino - a bloody cinematic valentine to the likes of Howard Hawks, Sergio Leone, and Sam Peckinpah, as well as a chamber piece in which his trademark dialogue ricochets within the confines of a stagecoach and then a cabin like bullets in a whirlwind.

Shot in the long-disused Ultra Panavision 70 format with a 2.76:1 aspect ratio by frequent Tarantino cinematographer Robert Richardson, the lensing results in resplendent, panoramic views of the densely snow-covered landscape. A six-horse stagecoach emerges from behind a statue of Jesus on the cross. A blizzard is hot on the coach's heels and it's still a long way from reaching its destination of Red Rock, Wyoming. The first three of the titular octet are introduced; Major Marquis Warren (a superbly electric Samuel L. Jackson), former U.S. cavalryman turned bounty hunter, who has $8,000 worth of dead bodies to turn in; John "The Hangman" Ruth (an excellent and grizzly Kurt Russell), a fellow bounty hunter who is fiercely protective of his prisoner, one Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is wanted dead or alive for the very enticing price of $10,000.

The two hunters share a mutual respect but differ in their philosophical approaches to their profession. Warren is satisfied to bring in his captives as corpses, but Ruth wants to bring them to the rope "to hear [their] neck snap with my own two ears." Daisy is the sole lady in the film's main eight, but in no way is she treated like one. Already sporting a black eye when first introduced, Daisy is arguably beaten, punched, dragged around, and shot at more than any of the men. (It's a close race between Leigh and The Revenant's Leonardo DiCaprio as to who endures the most suffering over the course of their respective films.) The abuse rained upon Daisy is played for laughs and Leigh takes it like a champ, all the while engraving a portrait of a dangerous woman who has more than a couple of tricks up her sleeve. She's blood-soaked and almost toothless by film's end, but she is the most unsettling of them all, licking the blood from her lips with vampiric relish.

Three become four when they come across Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), an openly racist southern renegade who cheerily claims to be Red Rock's new sheriff. Ruth initially refuses to take him aboard, but Mannix reminds him that he and Warren can only collect their bounty from the sheriff, so how are they going to get their money if they strand the sheriff in the snow? The personal, political and racial conflicts make for an uncomfortable ride with Mannix announcing that Warren had a $30,000 bounty on his head some years back for burning down the prison in which he and 47 men (not all white Yankees, Mannix points out) were held. "Confederates took exception to my capacity for killing," Warren tells Ruth, "while the South took my continued existence as a personal affront."

Warren soon finds himself a black man in a further white hell when they all arrive at Minnie's Haberdashery, an isolated cabin where they encounter the remaining four of the eponymous eight. There's the deliciously named Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), who happens to be Red Rock's new hangman; Bob "The Mexican" (Demián Bichir), who tells Warren and Ruth that he's looking after the establishment whilst the usual proprietors are visiting their folks; Joe "The Cow Puncher" Gage (Michael Madsen), a cowpoke who does not seem the sort to be on his way to visit his mama; and General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), an old coot whom Mannix instantly idolises and who makes little effort to hide his hatred of Warren. Warren's blazing monologue recounting a particularly depraved form of vengeance is a throwdown to all the white scum surrounding him. Don't mess with me, Warren's tale warns, because hellfire will be a heaven compared to the malevolence he will unleash.

All of the actors' glee in performing Tarantino's dialogue is evident. Many of them haven't had a role this meaty in quite a while, and they bite into it as if it were their last meal. It's especially heartening to see Goggins, the relative newbie of this wild bunch, be given so bright a spotlight by Tarantino, who utilised him in a more minor role in Django Unchained. Only Channing Tatum, who appears very late in the game as the mysterious fella in the basement, is out of step. Tatum is a fine actor, but he does not yet have the depth of character that the others possess. The others are able to tame the more cartoonish elements of plot and character, but Tatum plunges headlong into it, a dire mistake that disrupts the film's overall tone.

Only Tarantino can get away with creating what is essentially a claustrophobic Agatha Christie murder mystery and elevating it into an expansive aria of splatter. The brilliance of Tarantino, more than his hardcore cinephilia, play with linearity and multiple perspectives, and vibrant wordplay, is his uncompromising willingness to let the tale unfold at its own pace. Or, as Warren remarks, "slow it down...slow it way down." It's a trait currently shared with Alejandro González Iñárritu, whose The Revenant would make for an intriguing companion piece.

The Hateful Eight

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Written by: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Channing Tatum, James Parks, Zoë Bell, Dana Gourrier, Lee Horsley, Gene Jones, Craig Stark