THE HATEUL EIGHT
Its opening credits remind us that the vengeance-minded Western The Hateful Eight is “the 8th film by Quentin Tarantino.” That’s actually helpful. Because by the time the closing credits roll some two-and-three-quarter-hours later (the movie’s 70-millimeter “roadshow” version lasting some 20 minutes more), you’d swear it was at least the 28th film by Quentin Tarantino. I admire the man’s output to no end, and five of his seven previous features are firmly entrenched amidst my 10 favorites for their particular years. But despite its flashes of brilliance, I found myself as annoyed with The Hateful Eight as I was with 2012’s Django Unchained, and for much the same reason: its auteur, by now, appears so immersed in the act of loving Quentin Tarantino that he leaves almost no room for us to love him, or his films, back.
Much has been made in the press about that roadshow, and not just about those screenings in which projectionists apparently weren’t up-to-speed on how to handle film prints in the digital age. We know that, in addition to its über-widescreen format, this Hateful Eight boasts an overture – legendary composer Ennio Morricone’s score plays, for several minutes, over a static image of the film’s title – and a mid-movie intermission. (Plus, ticket-buyers are treated to a 14-page souvenir program. It must be the regret of Tarantino’s life that he wasn’t born Mike Todd.) We also know there’s roughly six minutes of additional footage in the 70-millimeter cut consisting of, as he told Variety, cinematographer Robert Richardson’s “big, long, cool, unblinking takes” that are “awesome in the bigness of 70.” I’ve no doubt the extended version looks glorious – the movie’s trailer literally advised us to “See it in glorious 70MM” – and that the roadshow feels like a true, capitalized Event. Tarantino’s old-fashioned showmanship is certainly worth applauding. But still: Twenty extra minutes? For a story this piddly and a presentation this familiar?
Like a John Ford oater re-designed as a wintry Agatha Christie mystery, The Hateful Eight strands a group of archetypes in an enclosed space – the Wyoming outpost Minnie’s Haberdashery – and before asking us “Whodunit?” asks us to guess “Who’s gonna get it done to ’em?” Party one arrives via stagecoach: bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his murderous charge Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh); former Civil War major and fellow bounty hunter Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson); and newly appointed sheriff Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). A blinding blizzard forces them and driver O.B. Jackson (James Parks) to take refuge at Minnie’s, where Minnie herself is nowhere to be found. But party two is: British hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth); elderly Confederate general Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern); laconic cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen); and the outpost’s Mexican caretaker Bob (Demián Bichir). Just “Bob.” The colorful names of the others suggest that maybe “Bob” isn’t to be trusted. But then again, Michael Madsen is cast as a soft-spoken gentleman who insists that he’s merely en route to visit his lonely mother at Christmas, so maybe no one is to be trusted.
This all sounds fun, and it oftentimes is. There’s so much undisguised loathing and distrust between the shut-ins that the air is thick with malice and the threat of violence (more than a threat whenever Domergue’s punching bag is around), and Tarantino’s lauded talent for artful loquaciousness yields some fabulously quotable dialogue. But the chatter is also, at times, uncharacteristically clunky. Not long after meeting the clientele at Minnie’s, Ruth tells his traveling companions, “One of these men is not who he says he says he is” – a weirdly out-of-the-blue statement that sounds great in the trailer but embarrassingly on-the-nose within the narrative’s context. And because the setup is so limited – nine characters, one locale, nothing to do but wait for the inevitable – everyone’s collective gift for gab starts to feel, unhappily, like filler. Some of that filler is extraordinary, and Warren’s long speech recounting his meeting with the general’s son is a sick-joke beauty. (It’s also told with accompanying flashback images, allowing us momentary escape from the claustrophobia of Minnie’s.) More of it, though, just sounds like Tarantino spinning his well-worn tires, and you’re almost pathetically grateful when the blood finally begins to spill.
Yet by now, we’re so accustomed to Tarantino’s slow-burn rhythms, chronological trickery, determinedly drawn-out moments of silence, and gruesome blasts of viscera that nothing that happens over The Hateful Eight’s extreme running length constitutes much of a surprise. (It definitely isn’t a surprise, though it is unfortunate, when the director interrupts the proceedings to speak to us in voice-over, archly underscoring his own cleverness.) You may wince at the shootings and beatings and depressingly typical overuse of a certain racial epithet, but these Tarantino-isms are no longer shocking. Nor, for that matter, is his recent inability to effectively modulate performances; Goggins’ high-wire turn is pitch-perfect, but Jackson and Russell appear to breeze in and out of both character and time period, and Roth and Leigh are just as frequently excruciating as they are excellent. (The opening credits reveal that more actors than the stranded nine will appear, and the less said about the distractingly mannered portrayals of Zoë Bell and Channing Tatum, the better.) Not for a second, while watching The Hateful Eight, will you forget that it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie. I deeply wish that were better news.
