Tarantino does Hitchcock...

Rating: 5/10 (17 January 2016)

The Hateful Eight is Quentin Tarantino's 8th film – and no there is no room for argument regarding Kill Bill 1 & 2 counting as one singular film, especially as the words "The 8th film by Quentin Tarantino" is seen during the opening credits.
His seven previous films all tries out (or tributes) different genres, he takes a stab at everything from gangster dramas to blaxploitation, via kung fu and western and many other styles, always twisting them to his own quite unique style. The Hateful Eight is no exception. It has a go at Sergio Leones love for long, slow shots, especially during opening scenes – and The Hateful Eight does just that, starts off with an incredibly long shot, going from extreme closeup (Leone again) to a wide landscape shot of a stage coach approaching through the blistering snow. All set to a totally AWESOME "impending doom"-score by master craftsman Ennio Morricone. That score though, hints at the other genre-of-sorts Tarantino takes a stab at with this movie. The Hitchcockian genre – if that could be called a genre. Because as soon as the stage coach reaches it's goal (a restaurant/bar/thingy in the middle of nowhere called Minny's Haberdashery) it turns into a mystery-thriller, where you are not sure of who is the bad guy and who is the good guy (or if indeed there are any good guys at all).
Set design, lighting and the overall gritty look of the film is stunning. Tarantino is perhaps known as a film maker, but he is in equal amount a stylist. He knows what he wants to see, and makes it so. And that is good, because The Hateful Eight combines the long slow takes of Sergio Leone with an Hitchcockian attention to minute details. It is quite interesting to behold
And therein lies the only real problem I have with this film, that you're not really watching it – you're beholding it. This time around it doesn't feel like Quentin Tarantino made a film for an audience, he just made it for himself. His films are expected to have a few key ingredients; an obscene amount of usage of the "n-word", drawn out monologues (preferably spoken by Samuel L Jackson) and violence. Brutal, unflinching, over- the-top violence, including blood and brains splattered everywhere. Everyone is just sitting there kind of waiting for these things to happenand Tarantino just can't help himself. It doesn't matter that the scenes doesn't really require all that blood, or – for that matter – that they are not even improved by it (rather the opposite), he puts it there anyway.
I'm not squeamish in any way, and the violence doesn't make me look away – or even flinch, but I do tend to find it boring if it has no purpose. Same thing with the long, slow – albeit artistically marvelous – shots. If they serve no purpose, they are simply something long and slow and pretty to look at.
In Pulp Fiction there is a long take where Jules (Sam Jackson) and Vinnie (John Travolta) is walking through the corridors of an apartment complex, talking about foot massages and weather or not they mean something more than just the massaging of feet. The shot is long – impressively long – as it follows the two hit men along these corridors. The winding camera and the fact that they are on the move almost the whole shot distracts from the fact that the conversation they are having is mostly pure nonsense. Funny every now and again, perhaps. But ultimately it is just two guys letting their mouths run wild, nonsense. The Hateful Eight has quite a few of these long monologues/dialogues, but it is combined with a long, borderline stationary camera, that does very little to distract you from any eventual pointlessness. It is pretty to look at, though.
In Django Unchained there is this long, drawn out scene of just total mayhem, right after Dr Schultz (Christoph Waltz) gets himself killed and Django (Jamie Fox) starts shootingwell, everybody. There's blood EVERYWHERE and people coming in the door getting shot and landing in a big pile on top of each other. One guy not dying from his first shot, or his second, or third or fourth and just continues getting shot – by Django and his own peers alike. There's so much blood the whole room changes colour! But it works, because it has a purpose! The purpose here – as in most Quenting Tarantino movies – is to entertain. There is nothing resembling tension here. Django is the superhero of the movie, and by that time you are no longer fearing for his life. He'll make it, because he's supposed to! The Hateful Eight saves up, building tension, and then lets the violence rip Or rather let the blood flow. In spades! But the vast amount of blood isn't necessary. It doesn't entertain, or to put it another way, if you find it funny and laugh (and I did, at times) it means the tension is gone. Everything built up during the past two hours is now gone, and you are left with a final 45 minutes of pointless violence. You no longer care about the characters, and thus no longer care about the story.
Quenting Tarantino sells movie tickets on his name alone – and that is a HUGE responsibility. Granted, his worst movies are not at all bad, and neither is this one. It is, after all, beautifully shot, it has some really cool dialogue/monologue and a handful of really good actors doing a really good job. It CANNOT be bad! But it certainly doesn't rank anywhere near his best