Worth Seeing but not a Home Run

Rating: 3/10 (3 July 2016)

I was a bit disappointed in this flick. We've come to expect a lot out of Tarantino and when he doesn't hit a homer, well we're let down. As usual I'm not going to restate the plot as that's been done by others. I think Tarantino wanted this movie to be raw and edgy like Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" but can't hold a candle to that classic despite a few good camera shots and decent editing. I'll just go over the positives and negatives and you can be the judge. First I'll hit the positives. If you are sensitive to violence, the n-word and harsh realities, well then why are you watching a Tarantino movie to begin with? So those who for those who like their movies raw...applaud. I felt the flick had a good amount of twist and turns and certainly kept my interest much of the time. I enjoyed some of the camera angles, for example the one with an inside the barn view to out to the storm. The acting, as you would expect from the cast, was great. I'm always happy to see Jackson, Kurt Russel and Michael Madsen in any production. I wasn't familiar with Walton Goggins, but thought he did well. The production values and sound effects were spot on. The Negatives of the Hateful 8 were as stated by many, was that it was a bit slow for today"s movies, especially when 90% of the movie was filmed in a stark cabin. I appreciated the few scenes with the cold landscape which set the scene and made the viewer realize why no one was getting the heck out of there. Another minus was the lack of historic detail (in the story not the costumes). As far as I know, the historic references to the civil war were not accurate. There were some useful examples in the Civil War like the Saltville Massacre. The dialogue is particularly 2015 and not latter nineteenth century. To me the race angle and the the black dun-gas bit was way over done not well done, and yes any director even Tarantino can be overly excessive in certain movie elements, but that's me. Art can be excessive, but is also restraint. The main problem was that the movie was dull in certain places, particularly during the first half. Maybe the flashback scene could have been cut or reduced as much of it should have been deduced by most viewers. I know it's Tarantino and we sometimes get events out of sequence. In the end, I just personally didn't think the writing and plot line lent itself to a great movie. So maybe we should just celebrate Single or Double and keep our home run expectations more realistic for Quentin?