Review: THE HATEFUL EIGHT Is Quentin Tarantino's Best Film Yet
As a longtime fan of the western genre and Quentin Tarantino's work, The Hateful Eight was a movie that I was looking forward to seeing. On top of that, it was shot in 70mm, and until this movie I had never seen a movie projected in 70mm on the big screen before, and that alone was an awesome first-time experience for me.
My experience of seeing The Hateful Eight was like being transported back in time. It was probably a mixture of the old theater that I watched the film in, the western story, the style of the film, and the fact that I was actually watching the film in 70mm projection. It has been so long since I’ve seen a movie in any kind of projection other than digital. Adding to the experience was the fact that the movie started out with an overture and even had a 12-minute intermission two hours into the movie. We just don’t have those kinds of moviegoing experiences these days.
I absolutely loved how fun it was watching this film. I think I had a smile on my face the whole time, it was just so damn enjoyable. I even thought the imperfections of the projection enhanced the experience and gave the movie even more character. It just amplified everything. I really hope that The Hateful Eight inspires other filmmakers to go out and shoot movies in 70mm because it’s absolutely beautiful.
Shooting in 70mm allowed Tarantino capture the beauty of the bleak, snowy, western landscape. It also offered more intensity to the interior shots of a little inn in the story called Minnie’s Haberdashery, and it brings the audience in closer to the characters. It's more intimate, and allowed for Tarantino to tell more of the story with the characters. There is a lot of stuff going on with the characters, in the foreground and in the background. There are eight main characters in the story, and with 70mm he could fill the entire frame with all of them. It allows you to see where every character is and it closes the audience in.
70mm film also is able to capture depth, color, and light in ways that digital can’t. After seeing a movie in this way, it seems like a step back in the wrong direction to film and watch movies digitally. It’s simply spectacular.
As far as the movie itself goes…BRAVO Tarantino! He brought the western back in full force! Of course, he gave the genre his own twisted touch, but that’s what we love about Tarantino, that’s why we enjoy watching his movies. He is able to do things in his movies that no one else will or even can effectively pull off. If you’re easily offended, then The Hateful Eight is not the movie for you. It features men beating the shit out of women, and there are racial slurs galore. That’s all part of the story, though. It’s set in a different time, and it’s also part of Tarantino's charm. He might just be the only filmmaker in Hollywood that can get away with this kind of stuff. He does these things to shock people, and the reason for that shock is to raise awareness and to get people thinking and talking about these issues.
The Hateful Eight delivers a slow burn kind of story that escalates into an insane burning inferno. By the climactic end of the movie, everything comes to a boiling point and explodes in the greatest possible ways! The story begins with a wagon being pulled by horses through the unforgiving winter western terrain, and it is trying to stay ahead of a dark brutal-looking blizzard that is on their tail. Kurt Russell’s character is a bounty hunter named John Ruth, a.k.a. The Hangman, and he's transporting his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the town of Red Rock where he will collect a bounty of $10,000 for her and see her hanged. They are traveling in the wagon and along the way he picks up two strangers who are looking for a ride. One is Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and the other is Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). They eventually get to a point where they need to stop so they can let the storm pass by them. They end up stopping at an inn called Minnie's Haberdashery, where they meet a group of shady characters named Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), Bob (Demian Bichir), and General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern).
All of the actors in the film were phenomenal! I really don’t want to get into the meat of the story because it’s meant to be experienced, and I don’t want to ruin that for you. If you know Tarantino, then you know you’re going to get a lot witty, fun dialogue from some wonderfully colorful characters. I will say that John isn’t a very trusting person, and he finds himself in a situation of deception and betrayal. There are a lot of surprises as the story is told, and it’s told in a way that will make Tarantino fans very happy. There is a lot of really fun humor in the film, but it also is intense as hell. I was on the edge of my seat enjoying every second of it!
Goggins put the whole story into perspective when he said, “The story is about liars, and it’s about lies. It’s about people who want to get on with their lives, but can’t. It’s about claustrophobia, and it’s a story about things that are never fulfilled.”
If you're a fan of Tarantino's work, you are going to love The Hateful Eight. I strongly suggest that you see it in 70mm if you are able to so you can get the full effect of the film the way it was intended to be seen. I think this is Tarantino's best film to date, and I'm excited to see what he does next. I can't wait to hear what you all think about it after you see it!