Near-Pitch Perfect Tarantino

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2016)

It's 10 Little Indians in the snow, except it's a Western and there's 8 of them (so the title suggests) and, 8 films into his career Tarantino has almost made peace with the kind of films he really makes: wonderfully clever B-movies. There is no shame in that, quite the contrary, and the only blemishes on his latest - and undeniably most focuses - opus, are the moments when it tries to be something else.
Hateful Eight is a very claustrophobic chamber piece, locking us up in a suffocating space with some interesting, complicated and unnerving characters that will not be to every audience member's taste. The pure innocence of Basterds' Shoshanna or Django are nowhere to be found, and the closest we come is tough-to-love Hangman Kurt Russell and a top-of-his-game Samuel L. Jackson.
If you came here looking for Django's Mountain Cabin, you're in for some initial confusion. This is a much more intimate, restrained (until the bonkers last hour) beast, and all the better for it. There is dark fun to be had, but there is also a very real anger that makes it more interesting. You will laugh, but often, shortly after and by design, you will wonder whether you should have, and that is the sign of a mature, well-crafted piece of work.
This being Tarantino, his overbearing swagger does intrude once or twice: first, with chapter headings that arguably serve only to break the mounting tension, and second, with the over-hyped use of the Ultra-Panavision format. Though DP Robert Richardson's work here is faultless, the use of the format itself is little more than a gimmick, and neither makes nor breaks the film (unless you've seen the roadshow version in one of several reported instances where the projectionist screwed up). Ennio Morricone's score is effective, but don't go into this expecting the great man's twilight masterpiece, particularly as his most memorable cue is recycled from 1982's The Thing.
In the end, this is one of the best modern screenwriters we have embracing the range of his talent, and applying a more disciplined and patient focus than ever. The result is, in this era of dime-a-dozen prequels, sequels and reboots, a thing of beauty.