I heart The Hateful Eight

Rating: 8/10 (1 April 2016)

As far as writer/director Quentin Tarantino goes, in the past I had not been a great admirer of his work for the most part. However, I was pretty pleasantly surprised by his new film, The Hateful Eight. I would compare The Hateful Eight as a combination of two of QT's previous films, Reservoir Dogs and Django Unchained.(both titles are Quentin films I like) Throw in a huge nod to John Carpenter's The Thing for the frostbitten tone of the film and for the general theme of mistrust. The Hateful Eight is a beautifully shot and epic film with an equally impressive score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone. The scope of the film is massive and by having the benefit of seeing this in the theater, if you had not then you missed out. The Hateful Eight looks and sounds amazing, but the film is a gritty, bleak, bloodsoaked whodunit taking place in a brutal blizzard in post civil war Wyoming. Our main cast is an unsavory bunch with some less rotten than others, but overall everyone is pretty bad in this film any way you slice it. That dynamic does not work against the film or make it less interesting and our cast did a fine job portraying these violent miscreants. QT has redeemed himself for his poor use of Kurt Russell in Death Proof by casting Kurt as the rugged bounty hunter John "The Hangman" Ruth. Tarantino regulars Samuel Jackson, Tim Roth and Michael Madson were all excellent. Casting western legend Bruce Dern gives the film a lot of credibility and class as Bruce was one of the few actors around to have worked on westerns with both John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. His performance and presence was great and enhanced the film in my opinion. Jennifer Jason Leigh gave a real gutsy and cold performance as despicable sociopath Daisy Domergue. This western is QT's bleak tale of frostbitten darkness that is harsh as the North American frontier in the heart of a blizzard. There are campy elements that go a little over the top, but this is kept to a minimum as this is Quentin's most serious film to date. There is a bit of dark humor and QT's violence is much bloodier than "Bloody Sam" would have went. Overall, I really enjoyed what I saw here and in my opinion this is QT's best film to date.