Review of The Hateful Eight (2015) by Jonathan B — 04 Jan 2017

It bothers me that Quentin Tarantino repeatedly manages to snatch disaster from the jaws of victory and nowhere is this more clearly shown than in The Hateful Eight. The majority of the movie is a well scripted, well acted and stunningly filmed take on an Agatha Christie style mystery where two groups of stagecoach passengers are marooned in an isolated way station during a blizzard.

As the story unfolds, it seems that many of them have a connection with each other and the friction and tension slowly rises. What ruined this promising set-up for me was Tarantino's inability to reign in his over reliance graphic violence and gory imagery.

It really jarred and spoiled the mood for me as I went from trying to work out details of the plot to squirming in my seat and hiding from the mess of blown-out brains and unnecessarily brutal images that filled the screen.

Does he always have to go this far? There are some blackly comic moments as you would expect from Tarantino, many provided by the excellent Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson who play bounty hunters brought together early in the story.

As I've said, the setting is stunning and the wintery landscape makes for a stark and beautiful setting for the action which owes much to the great cinematography of Robert Richardson. Sad then that so much of their efforts are wasted by Tarantino's puerile obsessions with over the top, bloodthirsty sequences.