Trust, fear, distrust, paranoia all play out in bloody perfect fashion

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2015)

There are no filmmakers quite like Quentin Tarantino. His ultra-stylized dialogues and savvy characters combined with usually (seemingly) simple stories has been a staple of his since Reservoir Dogs. Lots of directors are cookie cutters of each other, all expendables and mix and matches, but when Tarantino dies, I guarantee there will never be another Tarantino to take his place. The Hateful Eight, appropriately named, is the eighth movie of his controversial but stellar career, and another masterpiece following personal favorites such as Inglourious Basterds, Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained. Like the latter, this movie is a western set circa the Civil War, but unlike the Django, it is a considerably "smaller" movie. Gone are the grandiose landscapes and epic locations of the former and arrived is a mostly one-set film that is performed more like a stage play. However if this is indeed a theatrical play I am not sure if I would like to sit in the front row in fear of the gallons of spraying blood that will undoubtedly ensue.
The Hateful Eight takes place on a snowy mountain in Wyoming, a few years post-Civil War, where sentiments from the majority towards African Americans are still full of suspicion, meanness and hate. Samuel L. Jackson plays Major Marquis Warren, a bounty hunter, in need of shelter from the incoming blizzard. He meets John Ruth, a fellow hunter, en route on a stagecoach to the nearby town with his prisoner, Daisy Domergue, where she will be hanged for her crimes. The three characters soon have to be holed up in a haberdashery where they meet five other strangers: Chris Mannix the local sheriff, Bob the person temporarily in charge, Oswaldo Mobray the town's hangman, Joe Gage a cowboy, and Bruce Dern as retired General Sanford Smithers; and one, some, or if not all of them are not what they say they are.
The apparent obstacle of the film centers on Ruth's distrust of the six other men with his prized bounty prisoner, whom he believes they might be after. This creates a sense of tension and paranoia in the movie, a whodunit, and a "who can you trust?" Being dealt with the dilemma of having to take a side of one of these despicable characters is both difficult and uncomfortable, since as an audience member that is what we are conditioned to do with mediums of fiction – take the side and the perspective of the protagonist. With a more traditional movie, the protagonist will be easily identified, however with The Hateful Eight, it lives up to its namesake as it presents you with characters that are shady and two-faced, so much so even by the time the credits roll, you are still left with uncertainty on who exactly to believe in.
With our modern sensibilities, even the most "likeable" – and I use the word very loosely, character is hard to like since every one of them are either women-beating and/or racist epithet-saying jerks. With every white character using the N-word freely against the lone African American, Major Warren, we cannot help but to stand by his side, if just only for those moments. Race relation is one of the central themes of the film, which I do not doubt the always progressive-minded Tarantino deliberately left in contemporary messages. One of the lines spoken by Warren in regards to black and white relations will surely ring true with the mass and will keep you thinking well after the movie.
The film in whole is a mystery suspense film disguised as a western. Trust, fear, distrust, paranoia all play out in bloody perfect fashion in mostly one setting, not unlike a stage play. Its often eccentric and exaggerated performances mirror Broadway to great effect. The haberdashery, the location where the majority of the film takes place is just a medium-sized one room structure that houses eight strangers. This allows the story to play out more personal and close, and at times gives a sense of inevitable doom. Imagine locking two roosters in a small cage, something is ought to happen, and will probably not be pretty.
Tarantino is no stranger to violence, but a lot of other films are also violent, so what separates those film's violence and Tarantino violence? The answer is simple: the suspension prior to the brutality; Tarantino is absolutely masterful doing it. If you are familiar with his movies you know the setup of two or a few characters sitting around a table, ostensibly talking about mundane things that generally do not push the plot forward, but instead acts as a conduit to envelop the characters' true intentions. The performances from each one of the actors are great and the dialogues are razor sharp to keep you engaged, sometimes laughing, oftentimes holding your breath. Tarantino does a wonderful job in allowing the audience to know that things are not what it seem, he will let you in a little, but not too much. He keeps his secret to himself until he wants to let you know, but for now, just enjoy the ticking time bomb from underneath the table. In a Quentin Tarantino film, it is not a matter of if the bomb will blow, but when. The result is the use of violence that is not cheap shock, but earned reward.
If you liked Tarantino's other films, then this movie is a denser more personal version than all of his past works. If you do not like them, or feel offended by them, then this probably will not change your mind. At close to three hours, the pace is effortless, as lines between the characters will lock the audience in better than any gargantuan action scene from a summer blockbuster this year. Like Tarantino's other masquerading western, this is a violent film that will surely leave you in awe.