The Hateful Eight 2015
I like Quentin Tarnatino, but I do not believe he can do no wrong. I feel like he missed the mark on Kill Bill but he made a great comeback with Inglorious Basterds before losing me again with Django Unchained. The Hateful Eight, unfortunately, is more similar to Tarantino’s lesser works than his greater. This movie really sags at the beginning. He is setting up characters and trying to keep things tense by winding a clock spring, but for the first hour, virtually nothing happens. The movie plays out like a whodunnit where there are a lot of suspects and people with unknown allegiences and you know that it is going to get violent eventually. I don’t want to give away too much, and unfortunately there isn’t really much to give away because the plot is quite thin, but pretty soon we’re back to over the top violence, which Tarnantino uses sparingly in his better works and cranks up when he has less to work with.
That said, there are some great aspects to this movie which will endear it to film lovers forever, sometimes for the same reasons I didn’t care for it. The movie was shot in Ultra Panavision, using 50 year old lenses, making this only the eleventh movie ever to use that system. The outdoor scenes, filmed in brutal looking snow storms are gorgeous, not as plentiful, but similar to The Revenant. And the score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone is right up there with his best (and won an Oscar). The dialogue is often very good, but there is just too much of it. The acting and the characters themselves are not that great. It is hard to take Kurt Russell seriously and everyone plays over the top caricatures. Anyway, I have to give this movie a B-.
Like Django the movie centers on bounty hunters bringing in outlaws who are wanted dead or alive. It got me thinking about the legal repercussions of giving people a license to kill criminals without a trial and it turns out there isn’t a lot of evidence anyone was ever wanted dead or alive, though bounty hunters are allowed to basically kidnap people who have jumped bail while awaiting trial and should be in jail, including breaking a lot of laws to bring them in. I bought the Blu-ray of this movie (only $4) and it includes two (and only two) bonus features, one about the making of the movie, and another a promotion for the road show where an extended version of the movie was shown in select cities using 70mm film projectors. Both of those are good to watch.
Written: 15 Jan 2017
Owned on: Blu-ray