Review of The Hateful Eight (2015) by Tiberio S — 30 Jun 2017
Tarantino does something remarkable along his path as an artist: it seems he's been building this angry social warrior reputation, vengeful movies that inspire reverse discrimination - first Inglorious Basterds, second Django Unchained. Tarantino's films are choice, precise, telling something about the filmmaker's spiritual journey, hardly a repeating formulaic brand, though one can be misled to think that by the font, chapters, and chronology-fucking. So with this film, he makes the racial theme so upfront and obvious that the movie stinks of it. Is this Django continued? Will this theme carry out Tarantino's career in the age of Black Lives Matter? Is Sam Jackson continuing Jamie Foxx? Is Tarantino out of material? Just wait for it, all this race talk, and it amounts to nothing. By definition, there is one single hate crime in the entire film, and it's committed by Sam Jackson against a Mexican. How the fuck is that for irony? This film is going to make a lot of people angry, it seems Tarantino is now leveling the playing field.
As much as getting drawn into the dialogue is a wonderful experience, once it's revealed what's going on, it all seems like a pointless waste of time that not much explanation can justify. Why do these bandits let this go on for so long? Why such a diabolically horrible plan that is bound for absolute failure? How can Channing Tatum stand to be in that cellar for so long in this cold with no food or beverage? How the fuck does Oswaldo know to be prepared with Lance Lawson's sentence order having no idea that the Sheriff would be coming along with Kurt Russel? It all seems terribly made up on the fly. As much as it doesn't make sense, it's so wildly entertaining to watch these interactions unfold. You almost wish that something else was underlying all these interactions. And yet you can't deny that how it presents itself is awesome, what it reveals, what's actually happening. It's full of this duality, macro to micro, from the viewer experience to the characters'.
And who can deny the beauty of seeing a white Confederate and a black Union soldier uniting with their mutual nastiness?
This review of The Hateful Eight (2015) was written by Tiberio S on 30 Jun 2017.
The Hateful Eight has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
