Tarantino being himself. Just as he should

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2019)

A lot of the criticism aimed at this film seems to be based on the fact that it's long, tedious and relies too much on dialogue. But that's the thing about Tarantino - his films have always been wordy and dialogue-heavy. Think of all the non-stop banter in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir dogs, all the verbal flourishes in Inglorious Basterds and even Kill Bill. That's what makes him special. His writing is just as showy and over-the-top as his sense of humour and action sequences, that's what sets him apart from the rest of the crowd.
The Hateful Eight has dialogue in spades, but not for a single moment did I find it boring or redundant. Excessive, certainly, but that's the whole point. I felt that it was used masterfully in order to build character and maintain suspense. By the end of the picture my feelings for the characters were so contradictory that it took about too days to process them. And when it comes to writing and acting, I consider this effect a job exceptionally well done.
As for the generous 3+ hour screen time, it seems a bit misguided to bash a film for it in the day and age when people have no problem binging through a season or two of TV in a single night. What would happen if The Hateful Eight was 1.5 or 2 hours long? Could it tell the same story in an efficient manner? Most definitely. But is filmmaking really only about efficiency? Would it have the same sense of time and place, the same sense of character and isolation? I seriously doubt it.
The only thing that stuck out for me was that the acting looked a bit stiff in the first chapter, but that's pretty much it. Everything else - the cinematography, the pacing, the story, Morricone's soundtrack - was spot on. All things considered, this is definitely one of my favorite Tarantino films out there.