The Hateful Eight review (no spoilers)

Just got back from the theater where I watched Tarantino's latest film, The Hateful Eight. Keep in mind that I just saw this movie and only briefly discussed it with a friend afterwards, so I haven't had as much time to think about it and soak it up as I usually do after seeing films before writing these reviews, so this review may not be too long. Also, I feel that this is a movie that deserves spoiler-free reviews, as the entire picture is a mystery.

I've been looking forward to this one since I saw the first trailer. I've never seen an Quentin Tarantino movie I didn't like. Some are phenomenal, some not as good as others, but they're all pretty damn good, and Hateful Eight is no exception. I wouldn't say it's one of Tarantino's best, but still pretty damn good. As Tarantino's always been famous for, this film can dedicate lots of time to characters making small talk, yet keeping you entertained almost the entire time. Even all the small talk scenes only help fuel the suspense. They make you start to analyze which characters may be on each others sides, and they create an amazingly overwhelming web of potential connections. This makes guessing who's who lots of fun. Up until the guilt was exposed, I was guessing like mad who it could be on. Those are the two things this movie achieves perfectly. It may have awesome visuals, a great ability to establish the setting through visuals and mood, and pretty kick ass, suspenseful instrumentals, but the movie shines brightest with its character writing and its mystery. These characters are so well fleshed out. They may be gritty caricatures in a lot of ways, but they're also extremely realistic in their own, exaggerated sort of way. There is so much depth to most of them, and that is what makes the mystery of the film so amazing. Any film can try to put in a mystery, but if the characters are boring or don't give you much to work with, you can't really care. With bland, one dimensional characters in a mystery movie, you may as well just play a game of Clue. But in this film, all the characters have a slew of beliefs, allies, enemies, and history, and in a human-like fashion, many of those beliefs are altered during the events of the film. We get to know these characters extremely well, but in a clever way, we also don't really know anything about them. The mystery is so well done, I was actually having a ton of fun as the characters were putting it all together and trying to figure it out.

The story follows eight men and one woman in 1870's Wyoming. Some of the men are bounty hunters, while others are an executioner and a sheriff among other things. Almost all of them, for one reason or another, were on their way to the town of Red Rock. One bounty hunter, played by Kurt Russell, is carrying a bounty around, the one woman. She's to be hanged in Red Rock. When all of these people get caught shacking up in a shop for a few days from a blizzard, Kurt Russell suggests that one of them is in cahoots with his bounty, known as "Daisy", and tries to control the scene as to make sure they don't prevent him from bringing this supposed murderer to justice and making his $10,000. From that point on, all of the characters become uneasy and lose any trust in one another, trying to discover allies and enemies in a way to expose the guilty man.

The acting is also a worthy thing to mention. Samuel Jackson is freaking awesome, and pretty damn funny. While he stands out as the best performance to me, I don't mean to discredit any of the other amazing performances. Kurt Russell, Walton Goggins, and all the actors, all put on amazing acts, too. Most of the characters just worked off of each other so well, and the actors really seemed to get into the characters a lot. Even though there are so many big name actors in the film, you keep thinking of them exclusively as the character rather than the actor, simply because they put so much into the performances. Each one just seems to have so many layers to them rather than just being one solid, mono-toned cliche, even though some almost seem like they will be when first introduced.

Now, although this was a solid film, there are some flaws I feel the need to touch upon. The biggest flaw, I found, to be the pacing. I know Tarantino has been known to make some long ass movies, but this one felt a bit longer than it needed to be. I'm familiar with his generally non-linear style of storytelling, too, but when this movie makes time jumps, it seems kind of silly and unneeded. This is mostly due to the fact that for the first two thirds or more of the film, it's completely linear storytelling. It isn't until one of the final chapters of the movie that suddenly we get a massive flashback scene. It's not a bad scene by any means. It's entertaining, but I kind of feel it was unnecessary. We just start to learn exactly who is responsible for the events of the movie, and then it cuts to a really long flashback scene where we see the whole damn thing. Then, it cuts back to present day, and the film, again, pieces the puzzle together. It just seemed like a way to lengthen the movie. Everything that the flashback shows is explained, or could have been explained, in the linear story line without seeming sloppy or out of place. It also sort of kills any imagination that could be used to fill in the gaps. It literally tries to show how every little damn thing happened. It's a cool addition to fully explain the mystery in its entirety, down to the most meaningless of details, but a bit too drawn out for my personal tastes. It felt like he was afraid we wouldn't completely get what happened unless it was shown to us in full detail. The movie is also just a bit too long in general. Most scenes are pretty important to the plot, even when seeming like minute detail, since everything counts in a mystery, but damn near 3 hours is a bit too long for a film about eight guys spending about one night in a shack in a blizzard. It doesn't make the film bad at all, I still enjoyed almost every minute, but it could have been sped up just a little bit. The theater I went to also didn't pause for 15 minutes for the intermission the way the film was intended to, so for almost 3 hours I had to sit there and not go to the bathroom.

This movie is really damn good, except for the minor complaints I stated above. I'd say it's definitely worth watching, especially if you like Tarantino, or if you're just a fan of murder mystery type movies. For anyone who might be interested in it but has no knowledge of it, the only warnings I feel the need to give are that there's extreme violence, hateful language, and the movie's very long, but if you've ever seen any Tarantino movie before, you should already be expecting all of those.