Tarantino’s ‘Hateful Eight’ an absolute blast from the past
Fans of Quentin Tarantino know that if there’s one thing the writer-director loves — even more than bloody violence, music from the 1970s and women’s feet — it’s the sound of his own words.
“The Hateful Eight” just may be his talking-est movie yet.
For all the commotion about how it’s the first movie since 1966’s “Khartoum” to be filmed in the Ultra Panavision 70 format, “The Hateful Eight” essentially is a stage play. Sure, there are some gorgeous establishing shots. But all but about 30 minutes of the three-hour-plus extravaganza takes place inside a sparse cabin grandiloquently known as Minnie’s Haberdashery — and a good chunk of that half-hour unfolds inside a stagecoach with the curtain drawn.
Set “six or eight or 12 years after the Civil War,” according to the press notes, “The Hateful Eight” opens with the fantastically mustachioed bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) transporting fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) aboard the Butterfield Overland Stage Co. to Red Rock, Wyo., where she’s expected to hang.
Along the way, their path is blocked by fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and the pile of corpses he’s trying to get to Red Rock before an approaching blizzard hits. After some tense negotiations — Ruth isn’t convinced Warren won’t try to steal his bounty — they move on until they encounter Southern renegade Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), whom Ruth and Warren trust even less than each other. The smooth-talking Mannix eventually convinces the duo to give him passage by claiming he’s the new sheriff of Red Rock, so if they hope to collect their bounties, they’d better help him get there.
With all the delays, the group has no choice but to wait out the storm at Minnie’s, where they’re met by Red Rock hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), cow-puncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), Confederate General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern) and the mysterious Bob (Demian Bichir) — but no Minnie.
So much of the storytelling style Tarantino deploys in “The Hateful Eight” is, quite literally, storytelling.
“Who’s that?”
“Fellas, this here’s Daisy Domergue.”
“And who in the hell is Daisy Domergue?”
“Well, lemme tell ya …”
Exchanges very similar to that unfold maybe a half dozen times, with only one brief, graphic flashback to flesh out the tales. Yet, somehow, the whole thing remains captivating as the conversations escalate, unexpected alliances are forged and the claustrophobia and paranoia kick in long before there’s bloodshed.
The whole thing is exhausting in a spectacularly satisfying way.
As Tarantino’s unofficial muse, Jackson once again is tremendous as he rattles off the flowery prose. Goggins (TV’s “Justified” and “The Shield”) finally gets a big-screen showcase befitting his considerable talents. And Leigh manages to evoke both sympathy and scorn as the practically feral Domergue, who’s beaten, pistol whipped, elbowed in the nose, deprived of a few teeth and ultimately left looking like Carrie after the prom.
If you’re going to see “The Hateful Eight” — and you absolutely should — you really must experience it at AMC Town Square. It’s the only theater in the valley, and one of only 100 in the country, playing the roadshow version that’s 20 minutes longer (including a 12-minute intermission and an overture) and comes with a souvenir program.
You could wait for the standard version to come out at multiple locations on New Year’s Eve.
But why would you when the Western, much like the way it’s being released, is such an absolute blast from the past?
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @life_onthecouch