"The Hateful Eight" is vintage Tarantino, but more grounded and accessible than most of his films.

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2016)

Sometimes the experience of seeing a movie is best described as an "event". I'm not talking about the massive crowds or fans wearing costumes to the theater, ala "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". I'm talking about a filmmaker designing everything concerning his movie to be special. Love him or hate him, this is exactly what Quentin Tarantino did with "The Hateful Eight" (R, 2:47). This project was so special to him that when a draft of the script leaked out, he announced that he'd write the story as a novel, but not make it into a film, changing his mind only after an L.A. reading of the draft script went extremely well and Tarantino was convinced by Samuel L. Jackson himself. When the writer-director-producer got production back on track, he seemed to embrace the credo "Go big or go home." Tarantino shot the movie with old-style 70mm film stock and made sure that 100 theaters in 46 cities across the U.S. had or reinstalled old-school movie projectors that could show the film as intended. The December 25, 2015 release in those cities was a "roadshow presentation", a release template rarely used since the 1960s. This roadshow involved the distribution of souvenir programs about the movie, showing a somewhat longer version of the film (187 minutes, including an overture and an intermission) and shown, of course, "in Ultra Panavision 70"! If you weren't able to get to a roadshow presentation of the film, you can still appreciate its stunning western vistas on screen in a somewhat abbreviated 167 minute version, complete with new (and some older, previously unused) music by the legendary Ennio Morricone, scoring his first western in 40 years! Of course, all this begs the question of whether this film is worthy of all these special production and release arrangements The film is divided into six "chapters", each beginning with a black title card with white letters, as it tells the story of eight mysterious characters trapped by a blizzard in 1870s Wyoming. As the movie opens, bounty hunter John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell) is riding in a stagecoach, chained to Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), on whose head is a $10,000 price tag. Ruth likes to bring in his human prizes alive so he can give the local hangman some business – and watch them hang. Fellow bounty hunter, Civil War veteran Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), does things quite differently.
When Ruth's stage comes upon Warren standing in the road beside three corpses, Warren asks the driver, O.B. Jackson (James Parks), if he has "room for one more", O.B. defers to Ruth who recognizes Warren and welcomes him, along with his "luggage". A short time later, they come across another man on foot, with a blizzard approaching. Chris Mannix (Walter Goggins) says that his horse broke a leg as he was riding to Red Rock to be sworn in as the new sheriff. Ruth doubts that story and Warren isn't happy that Mannix turns out to be an unrepentant Confederate, but Mannix convinces the men to allow him to ride with them.
With the winter weather worsening, the stage stops at Minnie's Haberdashery where the passengers and their driver can rest and get something to eat and drink while they wait out the storm. There are four other men inside Minnie's – Confederate General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), British gentleman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) who introduces himself as a traveling hangman, quiet cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) and "Bob the Mexican" (Demián Bichir) who explains that Minnie left him in charge of the haberdashery while she went to visit her mother. Ruth is uncomfortable with these strangers and is concerned about someone trying to prevent him from getting to Red Rock and collecting his bounty on Domergue. He expresses his instinct that at least one of Minnie's guests "is not who he says he is".
Ruth's not wrong. The questions for us, as audience members, are figuring out who – and how many of these characters are misrepresenting themselves – and why. We try to figure out the answers as we watch the people on screen doing the same thing – and trying to get along well enough to survive the storm, in spite of their conflicting agendas and prejudices. Then, just when things inside that cold cabin really start to heat up, Tarantino pulls the bear skin rug out from underneath everyone. After Chapters One through Four tell us a chronological story, Chapter Five show us what happened early that day, then the Last Chapter picks up the action where we left it – for the intense and predictably violent conclusion.
"The Hateful Eight" is vintage Tarantino, but more accessible than most of his films. For example, like his previous film, 2012's "Django Unchained", this one takes place in the 19th century, deals with the ugly results of slavery, gives the black man a chance for some payback and even incorporates the character of a well-spoken European gentleman. Unlike most of Tarantino's films, however, almost all of the violence is saved for the last half of the film (but when it starts, it's as bloody as you'd expect), and this movie tells a story that's more linear than "Pulp Fiction" and based on a scenario that's more realistic than "Inglourious Basterds". The screenplay is smart and has some funny moments. The dialog is a pleasure to hear (if you're not bothered by Tarantino's well-known liberal use of profanity, including the n-word). The film's excellent performances sell the story – and entertain wonderfully. All this, topped off with Morricone's magnificent score, the spectacular scenery and cinematography which captures it, make this film an experience – nay, an event not to be missed. "A"