Tarantino was always best at Dialogue

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2016)

Hateful Eight is like a cross between Django Unchained and Tarantino's breakout Reservoir Dogs. It takes that Western setting and heavy undercurrents of racial tension, and sticks it, with all it's characters, in one confined space and drives it with dialogue and character. It's slow going to begin with, so I can't stress this focus on dialogue enough. The first gunshot isn't until the halfway point of the movie. Before that we follow the stagecoach as it races a blizzard and picks up lone strangers. Even once we reach the cabin that it all takes place in, the dialogue maintains it's centre stage to build up the characters and display the in-built tensions between them.
But when it comes to Tarantino, this focus on dialogue and character is absolutely not a criticism. Ever since Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino's strength as a filmmaker has been with writing dialogue and directing actors to get the best delivery of it. Hateful Eight is, once again, no exception. While there's no action per se, the conversations between characters are interesting enough, and heaped with enough suspense straight out the box, that you don't need gun fights and blood every ten minutes. What a lot of it boils down to is the aftermath of the civil war, as characters from each side find themselves sharing a room with the opposition, and all are not happy about it.
There's an eclectic array of characters on display here, which is another of Tarantino's strengths, but this is also where the film begins to falter. The leading man is arguably Samuel L. Jackson's Major Warren, who plays the black guy trying to make it in a white man's world. Such are his methods of survival in this outnumbered situation that he's not entirely the most trustworthy character, which can make him hard to root for at times. Fortunately, everyone else is just as despicable, or worse. Kurt Russell is John Ruth, a bounty hunter who parades the title "The Hangman" as he always make sure his bounties are returned alive ready for hanging. He doesn't have all too much respect for women, although he has the most respect for Major Warren than anyone else in the movie, and he's paranoid to the smallest detail. Jennifer Jason Leigh hams it up completely as Ruth's bounty; Daisy Domergue. She's rude and uncaring, and Leigh obviously had a lot of fun playing the part.Tim Roth brings in a fantastic performance as Oswaldo Mobray, the English Hangman of the town, but beyond his fairly neutral stance in the confrontations, there isn't really much character there. The same of which can be said of Michael Madsen's Joe Gage who is completely void of any character or presence. We're given no insight into him at all and Madsen just lazes and mumbles through the role, as if he doesn't really want to be there. Bruce Dern, however, brings spirits back up (or down) as General Smithers who fought against Major Warren in the civil war. This conflict is the root of the biggest racial tension in the group, but there's definitely more at play bubbling beneath the surface.
Once the action does kick in in the third act, Hateful Eight becomes possibly Tarantino's bloodiest movie yet, which is saying a lot. I haven't seen Django in a while, with it's pools of blood at the end, but Hateful Eight just felt bloodier. I'm not even sure that's a claim I can attribute to visuals, as it even sounds bloody as various characters squelch in their own plasma. A couple of characters violently vomit blood, a couple get their heads completely obliterated, almost everyone gets drenched in it, be it their own or someone else's. By the time the credits role, there's just blood everywhere.
Finally, the 70mm. I didn't watch it in a special 70mm cinema (at least, I don't think I did), but the picture was noticeably wider than usual. 70mm is usually used for vast and beautiful landscapes and settings, which makes it feel like an odd choice for a movie that spends 75% of it's time in one confined space. And yet, the extra widescreen is used to it's maximum capability. On more than a couple of occasions, characters are seen facing off against one another from opposite ends of the room, and with the 70mm adding that extra bit of width, you can see them both at either end. Make the screen any narrower and you would have absolutely cut one of them out. The extra width here is used less for the landscapes (although there are plenty in the opening moments), but more for capturing the whole breadth of the Habdashery and all it's dwellers.
To close, Hateful Eight is far from Tarantino's best movie, no denying that. It's slow going for a lot of the movie, a lot of the dialogue could have been trimmed further, and a number of characters could have done with a little more work. It's also Tarantino's most straight forward in terms of plot (although there are a couple of twists here and there, and even until it's final moments, you're not entirely sure who'll make it out alive), and it's themes are often retreads of what he's done before (in fact, Hateful Eight often feels like a pseudo-sequel to Django Unchained). However it maintains it's entertainment value, and it's shortcomings are more than balanced by his trademark brilliance elsewhere. It looks great and it sounds great, and I guarantee you'll be on the edge of your seat by the third act. I give Hateful Eight a somewhat fitting 8/10.