The Hateful Eight

Rating: 9/10 (19 May 2016)

I have to admit it, I have been a Tarantino sceptic in recent years. His bombastic style in the style of the exploitation cinema he obviously adores, is something I find irritating, especially when his more recent scripts contain hallmarks of his earlier screenplays, such as the opening to inglorious *ahem*. It gives me great pleasure to say that his latest offering is his best yet.
Tarantino is much more restrained here, giving us much more subtle dialogue and storytelling abilities. All of the characters from Kurt Russell's denim faced John Ruth to six horse Judy and every one In between, Tarantino has written every character as a fully formed human, for a change.
My reservations are few. Firstly, I thought there were some moments which went slightly overboard such as Kurt Russell vomiting everywhere and Jackson's diatribe to Smithers. I know the latter is supposed to be exaggerated in order to enrage the General and whether that event actually happened or not, but I thought It was slightly too gratuitous. Also, Channing Tatums cameo was a little confused. If he was down below the whole time, why didn't he act sooner when tensions were high? These are ultimately nitpicks because the tone of The Hateful Eight is spot on.
But most of all, I think this is a return to form for Tarantino. Kill Bill through to Django had characters being killed off, left right and centre and I didn't care for their demise, which isn't good. But in this, Literally every character's death made me either sad or uncomfortable in some way. In particular, the 'Charlie' character. He hides in the back when the others get killed by the gang. When Madsen's character (Joe Gage) finds him, his desperate pleas are strangely touching. The music and editing of that scene in particular are very well done.
A part of me thinks the improvement in quality is because of the infamous script leak. I've read that particular draft and it wasn't as good as the finished product. If it hadn't been leaked, would that have been the film that got made? Did the leak force Quentin to get more creative? It certainly makes me wonder. It makes me wonder 'I wish they leaked Kill Bill'.