A must-see for fans of the western genre

Rating: 10/10 (1 February 2016)

The Hateful Eight is an amazing movie that no fan of the western genre (especially spaghetti westerns) should miss. The twist is that while everything is in the tone of a spaghetti western with intentionally clichéd characters like the silent cowboy, the bounty hunter, "the Mexican" and the grumpy old racist officer, they are all put in a claustrophobic setting reminiscent of The Thing. The pacing of the movie is also quite slow and deliberate, where nothing seems to happen for long stretches of time while still being wholly enjoyable to watch thanks to the cinematography and the atmosphere.
Now there is a lot of criticism directed at this movie. The criticism of the movie's pace and gory content is a matter of taste and subjectively depends on one's take on standard Tarantino fare. While such criticism is justified, most complaints about the movie revolve around the fact that it is offensive and that it does not "really have a message" while dealing with complex social issues. Now the thing to keep in mind is that this movie deliberately features horrible and racist people, who act exactly like horrible and racist people would act in the 19th century in the Old West. There are three issues to consider here:

is there something wrong with a movie featuring evil, horrible and intentionally shallow characters (meant to work as caricatures of standard western tropes)?

if such characters are cast, is it wrong to expect that they should say offensive things and act in an offensive manner (and thus be in character)?

should a movie dealing with social issues such as race and gender necessarily "say" something about it?

The answer to all three of these questions is, of course, a big no. The best way to deal with a social issue in film is to show it, portray it for what it was. The idea with The Hateful Eight is that race relations in America were/are utterly messed up with no clear good and evil. We can see this in the "oppressed" female character also being racist, the black character who is the recipient of most insults in the movie also being a terrible person and in the sweet black lady running the shop also being racist (towards Mexicans). If one is necessarily looking for a concise "message" or a satisfying conclusion, it can be that the only two intelligent characters in the movie are the black character and the female character.
So I believe most of the criticism at its purported offensiveness and pointlessness is flat out wrong because it all fits in the movie's own logic. The Hateful Eight is simply a great western movie and also a great murder mystery.