The King is Dead

Rating: 1/10 (11 March 2016)

In the early 1990s a young Quentin Tarantino set a benchmark for how brilliant and innovative cinema can be. Two decades later, after a string of disappointing attempts to recapture that cinematic magic, he has set a new benchmark .... In how terrible cinema can be.
Its with a heavy heart that I watched this diabolical attempt at film making unfold. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were more than just movies to young people in the 90s, they became pop culture, iconic memories of that decade. Then came Jackie Brown, a decidedly average attempt from a guy who had been so talented that even the scripts he sold on became movie classics. In the two decades that followed the movies he has made have become steadily worse, shallow soulless mimicry of his earlier work. Its truly been hard to watch a legend of cinema very slowly disappear up his own backside, and in this new movie the process was completed.
Ladies and gentleman the king is dead!!
What Tarantino did with such success in his first two attempts at movie making was to enthuse modern movies with an iconic 1970s style. Punchy razor sharp dialogue, black humour, non-linear time lines and innovative characters. Fast forward twenty years and his efforts are an awkward parody of their former selves. They are big budget B-Movies.
So whats so bad about Hateful Eight? Well for a start it isn't a clever who-done-it as some claim, the "mystery" lasts about 10 minutes of screen time and isn't really even relevant. That's 10 minutes out of an extraordinarily long and self satisfied 3 hours. There's nothing clever about this plot at all, drawing it out simply thins out an already wafer thin storyline to near nothingness. There's literally no character development either, Im sure Michael Madsen and Tim Roth are only in this movie to make the numbers up to eight for two reasons. 1) It rhymes with hate and 2) Its Tarantino's eighth film .... genius!
Then there is the pointless and very graphic violence and language. Now I'm no prude when it comes to cinema but what makes this cross the line to distasteful is that its all out of context. In Pulp Fiction and Reservoir dogs the violence was relevant to the story. In this movie its just added in for what I assume is meant to be entertainment, possibly aimed at fans of The Walking Dead? Hearing Samuel L Jackson repeatedly being called the N-word for nigh on 3 hours became almost cringe-worthy. Yes Quentin we understand that racism was rife in the old West but if you want to make your audience think about this very sensitive issue in a constructive way is this really the right format? Wouldn't it be better to challenge these stereotypes rather than contribute to them? Also why is a movie so proudly declaring that its shot in 70mm when its set predominantly inside a little cabin? Why does the cabin look like its made from plastic? Why do they keep fixing the door in real time, its as if this is meant to actually be comical? I could go on and on about this awful catastrophe but ill leave it there.
Tarantino has long stated that he will only ever make 10 movies in his career, after this latest offering I truly dread to think what is coming next.