In a Hateful World, Tarantino's Intimate Western Epic Shows the Unifying Power of Violence.

Rating: 10/10 (23 February 2020)

For a filmmaker known for homage, Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight functions less like a love letter to a forgotten Hollywood genre than a sincere example of one. It doesn't imitate the classic westerns, it is one. Shot on honest to goodness 70mm film and scored by Ennio Morricone himself, The Hateful Eight plays like a relic unearthed from Hollywood's now ancient past. Its sumptuous technical quality, paired with another sizzling Tarantino script, makes The Hateful Eight a shining beacon in a movie landscape starving for quality, grown up entertainment. It's a big bad mother******, and it's one of the best films of the year.
Most of The Hateful Eight takes place in a single cabin. That intimate plot is one of the things that keeps The Hateful Eight feeling distinct from its inspirations. Tarantino turns the film into an Agatha Christie style chamber piece, set against a massive blizzard, where eight mysterious figures work out secrets, lies, and personal vendettas. You can't very well describe The Hateful Eight as a spaghetti western or even a tribute to the spaghetti western because its structure is completely new. Tarantino's script indulges his best impulses. The movie is almost entirely dialogue punctuated by extreme violence. The tense conversations wherein characters play subtle power games with one another in order to uncover secret motives is a staple of the best of Tarantino's writing, and he lets that urge run wild here. The movie is long, nearly three hours, but Tarantino never reaches a creative plateau. The story twists into pretzels, constantly surprising and delighting with new wrinkles. It only gets more complicated, more suspenseful, and more thrilling as it moves towards its resolution.
All eight of the principle actors are in fine form, so much so that I have trouble singling any one of them out of the bunch. Samuel L. Jackson is as charismatic as he's been in years, Kurt Russell and Walton Goggins exude real joy in their roles, and others like Tim Roth, Bruce Dern, Michael Madsen, and Demian Bichir are textured and complicated. But if I had to pick a standout performance, it would be from Jennifer Jason Leigh as Daisy Domergue, the most vile, nasty woman in film history. It's some kind of brilliant performance, a snarling, sarcastic psychopath who takes repeated punishment only to return the favor in increasingly evil ways. She is the lightning rod to the entire film, the only character that is pure, blood-spitting bad. The story hinges on Kurt Russell's character bringing her to justice and hanging her by the neck until dead.
And it is in that story thread that The Hateful Eight becomes truly special. Tarantino and Leigh punish you with Daisy's wretchedness over and over again until you start to believe that total evil will win the day. That is until two characters who began as principle opposites learn to come together for a common goal. The climax of The Hateful Eight is at once both gutturally horrifying and profoundly hopeful. A hanging by an olive branch. In the most Tarantino fashion, he creates a statement about American tensions more moving than a dozen entire movies on the subject. It's about justice, human decency and male camaraderie, and it is satisfying on a spiritual level.
The Hateful Eight is Quentin Tarantino let loose. It comes from a writer who feels completely free. Tarantino is doing what he loves, and doing it with an earnest passion. He's making his own legend to stand alongside Leone and Eastwood. It just so happens that when Quentin Tarantino simply messes around and has some fun writing interesting characters, it can be more substantial as a visual and intellectual piece of art than almost anything else.
96/100