The Hateful Eight

This review may contain spoilers!

This could quite possibly be one of Tarantino's worst films. I would give The Hateful Eight a 6.5/10.

What I have to say about the plot is that there is some masterful set up that leads to a brilliant final act, and I'm not awfully surprised by this because Tarantino generally has some very intricate plots for his films. Another thing that Tarantino excels at is his camera work, in this film the way shots are crafted to display small settings are really visually appealing. The soundtrack for this film is quite good, however one of the greatest aspects of the film is it's score which is haunting and filled with haunting segments.

Kurt Russell, who played John Ruth, is a fantastic stern bounty hunter; I enjoyed how confrontational he was towards the other characters. Michael Madsen, who played Joe Gage, brought an entertaining role to this film; I liked that he was clearly a thug but that he was trying so genuinely to convince others he was heading home to his Mum's. Bruce Dern, who played General Sandy Smithers, was quite a calm solemn performance that I liked; Dern was probably one of the few actors who made the film better because he gave a performance that was grounded.

However the best performance came from Samuel L. Jackson, who played Major Marquis Warren. I liked that jackson came across as a humble bounty hunter content with his lot for a long portion of the film, he suited this well mannered performance. But then his strength came in a stand out scene between himself and Dern in which he taunted and ridiculed Dern relentlessly in an incredible fashion. From that point on Jackson seemed to slip between playing in character and acting as himself which led to some entertaining scenes and funny line delivery.

I've come to expect gore, racism and sexism in Tarantino films, and while I dislike censorship and can see the argument that this film was accurate to the time period, I just found that this film was excessive with this content. It felt like a basic Western setting with simple characters; add to that a senseless amount of offensive content for the sake of offensive content and you have a very average Tarantino film. I should probably mention that this film is nearly three hours long and it feels it; I admired the set up work in this film but there was a lot of unnecessary scenes and dialogue exchange. The editing for this film was set up in a unique way to resemble older films but it just felt completely jarring, there were several instances where the action would cut from one scene to the other extremely abruptly.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, who played Daisy Domergue, was quite a simple and two dimensional antagonist; spitting and screaming for half the film is never really going to make you stand out. Walton Goggins, who played Sheriff Chris Mannix, was giving a performance that was extremely over the top in this film; his line delivery was really annoying. Demian Bichir, who played Bob, was quite an out of place example of comedic relief; his character felt like a cartoon character rather than a member of the ensemble cast. Tim Roth, who played Oswaldo Mobray, was worse than goggins and Bichir put together; his over the top accent and performance was cringeworthy. James Parks, who played O.B Jackson, was very forgettable in this film; he really didn't display much screen presence. Dana Gourrier, Gene Jones, Keith Jefferson and Belinda Owino, who played Minnie Mink, Sweet Dave, Charly and Gemma respectively, are the murder mystery victims that you knew about half an hour into the film; we really didn't need a scene with the character's themselves to validate Tatum's sudden appearance. Zoe Bell, who played Six-Horse Judy, is without a doubt the worst performance of the film; her line delivery is unbelievably awful. Channing Tatum, who played Jody, was introduced far too late to be interesting or relevant to the plot; I found Tatum's antagonist kind of weak and not very impactful. Quentin Tarantino, who voiced the Narrator, is the author of his own worst performance; I couldn't stand this narration that inexplicably started up after the film had already been playing for at least half an hour.