The Hateful Eight

While not as cinematically game-changing as Pulp Fiction or as gore-spattered as the Kill Bill films, The Hateful Eight doles out all of Tarantino’s favorite things.

The film's chatty, ingratiating, and then howlingly mean.

My personal view is that Quentin Tarantino is now permanently high on his own supply, but you could just as well say that he has succeeded in reinventing the art film. Is it worth it to put yourself through the brutal and incoherent three-hour ordeal of The Hateful Eight for its moments of brilliance and its ultimate catharsis? Jesus, don’t look at me.

Needless to say, if “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained” were too much for you, The Hateful Eight won’t be any easier. This is a big step beyond.

Stretched to three hours, including a pointless (old fashioned) overture and intermission, does it live up to the “Cinema Event” Tarantino has hyped it as? Hell no. It’s just a minimalist Spaghetti Western suffering from auteur bloat — sometimes entertaining, with not even remotely enough story of action to support its insuperable length and gravitas.

An impressive display of film craft and a profoundly ugly movie—so gleeful in its violence and so nihilistic in its world view that it feels as though the director is daring his detractors to see it as a confirmation of their worst fears about his art.

The Hateful Eight wears out its welcome well before the halfway point, leaving the equivalent of a whole other movie to sit — and suffer — through.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The first 3 chapters are about escaping from a snowstorm to a tavern. This part drags on a bit. But from now on it gets bloody. Once in the house, some strange things happen, so that chapter 4 becomes a detective show. In the fifth part you learn the back story and in the last part the finale takes place with exaggerated violence.

The Hateful Eight is a average movie. Quentin Tarantino is a one of the greatest of writers and directors of all time but The Hateful Eight is a letdown compered to his other movies.

A filthy movie with nothing beautiful or humane to it. Only graphical violence and total disrespect for human life and values.

Wow, that's a study in depravity. So. Much. Blood and Guts. There was ample opportunity and motivation for **** but somehow QT dispensed with that. And wow, was this an N-word festival or what?! So there'll be a segment of the audience that will be thrilled with that, though I think SL Jackson was overqualified for his role, but he's a regular in QT's films so that was going to happen, but he doesn't play the role well; he doesn't capture the Civil War era well at all, and as we all know that falls to the director to ensure his actors are in the proper frame of time and mind, so that's a mark more against QT than SLJ. But mega props to Jennifer Jason Leigh as Daisy for taking so much in the face! She'll need therapy after this role, seriously. But speaking of therapy, QT is crying out for it. I mean the amount of time he had to think, visualize, and plan for the depravity in this film is crazy and then to actually produce it. Wow, this guy is some kind of warped.