The Hateful Eight (2016) Review

"When I elbow you real hard in the face, that means: shut up" - John 'The Hangman' Ruth

After having to wait until January for it to be released in the UK and an extra week to write a review of it on this blog, here are my thoughts on Quentin Tarantino's newest film: The Hateful Eight. Following on from the success of Django Unchained, Tarantino has remained in the Western genre for his newest feature, which is told in six chapters. The film has not been without a troubled release in the US, something which has carried over to the UK with a number of cinema chains having pulled out from exhibiting the film. But is the film itself any good, and can it measure up to Tarantino's other features?

On his way to delivering murderer Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Red Rock, Wyoming, John 'The Hangman' Ruth (Kurt Russell) encounters bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson). Also on his way to delivering bounties to Red Rock, Warren joins Ruth in his stagecoach. Along the way they pick up Red Rock's supposed new sheriff, Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), and are forced to take shelter from a powerful blizzard. Arriving at Minnie's Haberdashery, they meet lodgers Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), Bob (Demian Bichir) and General Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern). Ruth becomes instantly suspicious of one of the lodgers wanting to free Domergue, and so he and Warren agree to project each other's bounties whilst keeping a lookout for any suspicious activity. Cue the combination of long dialogue scenes and bloody violence in the manner that only Quentin Tarantino knows how to do best, and you have a film that is undeniably his own.

Sadly, my first thought on the film after seeing it was that it is unnecessarily long. At nearly three hours, it is over-stuffed with Tarantino's longest dialogue sequences. This means that there is a big wait before anything of note happens (the end of the third chapter). Normally, I enjoy build up towards the more exciting moments, but the film really loses pace by having the story get really interesting so long into its run-time. The entire second chapter focuses on Mannix's talks with Warren and Ruth, creating a tension between himself and Warren due to their military history. This is further explored in the third chapter, as Mannix bonds with General Sanford. With the third chapter establishing a clear divide between the three characters and having to introduce the other members of The Hateful Eight, the second chapter has the effect of taking up too much of the run-time. The tension between Mannix, Warren and Sanford plays a big part in setting the best parts of the film into motion, and so the second chapter doesn't feel necessary when the third chapter does a good job of portraying this divide. Another problem is the characters themselves, while having good interactions, aren't as charismatic compared to Tarantino's other western, Django Unchained. Granted, The Hateful Eight has a more stage-play style compared to Django, but some of the charm and comedy moments from Django are sorely missing here. There's the occasional laugh, but they are mainly from Samuel L. Jackson towards the end, and the film feels rather empty without this coming from some of the other characters. 

On the other hand, there are some enjoyable things about The Hateful Eight as well. Though the characters aren't Tarantino's best, the performances are at least up to his films' usual high standard. Jennifer Jason Leigh has received the most praise of any cast member for her role as Domergue, having been nominated for a Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. You can tell she thoroughly enjoyed playing this character, as she makes every effort to stand-out from such as talented cast at every turn. Whether it be her crazed facial expressions or unsettling calmness, she certainly achieves this. I also really enjoyed Tim Roth's performance, despite his over-the-top British accent. He was the most fun next to Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the film felt like it was always more interesting when he was on screen. Samuel L. Jackson was his usual cool self, which worked well alongside Kurt Russell's more paranoid performance as Ruth. There is also a fantastic musical score by veteran Western composer Ennio Morricone, which is a more than welcome addition to the film. The opening track is particularly powerful as it creates a foreboding atmosphere and works beautifully with the excellent cinematography. Tarantino has stated the importance of filming The Hateful Eight on 70mm (Ultra Panavision), and I think this worked really well. Even with most of the film set indoors, using this format allows the audience to see what every character is doing and helps to show off the scenery better than standard film formats. 

Of course, I haven't been able to experience the film exactly as Quentin Tarantino envisioned. Much has been made of the film's "roadshow release", in which there is an intermission at the half way point. I feel this version of the film would make more sense of some of the creative choices such as the narration at the start of chapter four. Quentin Tarantino himself provides this narration, in which he explains what the audience didn't notice at the end of chapter three. After the intermission, this seems like a good way to get the audience re-involved with the mystery right away, but doesn't make much sense when watching the film straight through chapters one to six. Not a lot of UK venues where showing this particular version of the film, which I definitely would have chosen had I known more about it at the time of going to see it.

While its by no means his weakest film, The Hateful Eight is too long and less interesting than Quentin Tarantino's other works for it to be considered anything more than just about "good". There are some fun performances, a great musical score and sublime cinematography, but the characters and pacing weren't up to the high expectations I had. Some might say I expected too much, but I think after the brilliance of Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, and for such a talented writer/director, I don't think my expectations were unfair. Perhaps my opinion will change after the next viewing, but for now, The Hateful Eight is at the lower end of the impressive pile of work from one of cinema's greatest auteurs. 

Reservoir Dogs (1992) Review

"You ever listen to K-Billy's 'Super Sounds of the Seventies' weekend?" - Mr. Blonde.

With my review of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight being pushed back to next week, what better way to fill the gap than with one of his finest works? Reservoir Dogs introduced the world to Tarantino's filmmaking skill, and contains all the aspects we now associate (and love) with his films. Making black suits even cooler and ensuring you never listen to "Stuck in the Middle with You" in the same way ever again, Reservoir Dogs is an outstanding début, and one which remains as iconic today as it ever was.

What seems like a simple heist of a jewellery store turns out to be something far more complicated for a gang of criminals. Suspecting one of them to be working with the police after the heist goes awry, the group becomes paranoid and unsure of whom exactly they can trust. With the egos of Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) and Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) clashing, Mr. Pink's (Steve Buscemi) paranoia getting the better of him and Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) slowly dying from a gunshot wound, the pressure is on for the gang to clean the situation up with the help of their employees Joe (Lawrence Tierney) and Eddie (Chris Penn). Along the way, we are shown how each member of the gang came to be involving in the heist, and it all builds to an exciting final confrontation where no-one is certain to escape with their lives.

Like all of Tarantino's work, it's the characters of Reservoir Dogs that are the most enjoyable part. All of them play off each other so well, and each is totally unique. Their different approaches on how to handle the situation and the conflicts this leads to are the stand out scenes. Soon after the heist goes wrong, Mr. White and Mr. Pink end up drawing their guns, and Mr. Blonde soon enters the picture to makes matters worse. The performances in this sequence are fantastic, especially Madsen as the psychotic Mr Blonde. He has a way of appearing to be the calmest man in the room, but creating a more disturbing atmosphere amongst the gang at the same time. Tim Roth is terrific as always, with his scenes with Mr. White providing a more emotional edge to the story. Although he spends most of the film bleeding to death, he is still able to have a commanding presence, and Roth does brilliantly portrayed the different sides to this character.The opening scene with the gang sitting in a cafe also aids in giving them depth, as they appear to be just regular guys having a discussion as opposed to the extreme emotions they display later on. It means that the audience is able to have some sort of connection to such as violent group, which makes them all the more unsettling and memorable.

To go alongside such memorable characters are iconic moments which utilise the most common trait of all Tarantino films: violence. In the most famous scene in the film, Mr. Blonde proves just how unhinged he is when he is left alone with a cop being held by the gang. He revels that he amused by the idea of torturing a cop, and proceeds to slash the man's face and cut one of his ears off. All the while, the rock classic "Stuck in the Middle with You" is being played on the radio, which creates a totally unique juxtaposition of film violence. All at once, you are horrified by the actions of Mr. Blonde brutalising a defenceless man, intrigued by the use of the song and finally feeling guilty for laughing when Mr. Blonde talks to the severed ear and asks "can you hear that?". In a more light hearted moment, Tarantino demonstrates a knack for writing and directing a more amusing moment between the gang, when Joe assigns the names for each gang member. With Mr. Pink arguing over the triviality of having a more feminine name than the others, there is a well needed break from the intensity of the heist aftermath and the unsettling violence. And that's where the brilliance of Reservoir Dogs lies. It has everything you could want not just from a good crime film, but from a great film in general. It isn't often that a film has iconic scenes that are both horrifying and funny, and I can't imagine any other filmmaker making them work better than Quentin Tarantino.

My only negative, and it's a very minor one, is the flashback involving Mr. Orange. There's a moment where he is explaining to Joe and Eddie a lie about an event that happened to him. Though amusing, I personally felt the scene dragged, and so my initial interest was lost as the scene went on. It's one of the more surreal moments in the film, with an extensive use of slow-motion and wide angles shots, but the scene doesn't culminate interestingly enough for it to take up this much time.

That being said, Reservoir Dogs remains an incredible directorial debut for Tarantino. In its hour-and-a-half runtime, Tarantino presents his trademark filmmaking style effortlessly. Reservoir Dogs is now considered a classic in the crime genre, and remains a unique film in that field thanks to its well-written characters, interesting use of music and dark humour. Announcing himself as a household name straight away, Quentin Tarantino has gone on to achieve greater popularity through films like Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds, and Reservoir Dogs is always a fun film to look back on and see where all that talent and style developed from.

Inglorious Basterds (2009) Review

"You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business, we in the killin' Nazi business" - Lt. Aldo Raine.

What do you get when you take a director who's films are famously violent and have him direct a war film? The result is Inglorious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino's iconic use of violence works brilliantly alongside his warped take on the Second World War. For me, Tarantino is a director who's films always offer something to enjoy. Be it either twisted humour or quotable dialogue, he's guaranteed to leave an impression on the viewer. Inglorious Basterds is no exception.

Like his previous works, Inglorious Basterds is told in a series of chapters (in this case, five), whereby all the characters are in some way intertwined with one another, even if they appear to be on completely separate paths. In Inglorious Basterds, we have two main stories that are linked: a group of Jewish-American soldiers on a mission to assassinate the Nazi leaders, and a young woman named Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) seeking revenge on the Nazis after her family is murdered. Unlike Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), Tarantino tells the story as linear, and I think that works particularly well for the film. With both stories, there is a great deal of tension leading to an incredible climax, and so not knowing where the characters are going to end up makes for more suspense. What I especially admire is Tarantino's controlled use of violence in the film. There is a great deal of focus on character interactions here, perhaps even more so than his past films. The bloody violence is never given priority over the development of the plot, and of course is used to its extent only when necessary.

Without doubt the best aspect of Inglorious Basterds, like all of Tarantino's films, are the characters. What's highly commendable is his ability to portray both the Nazis and their enemies on the same level. The Nazis are not simply portrayed as the obvious villains, with their violent acts matched by the American's thrill of hunting them down. Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads the Americans, referred to as the Basterds. He is shown to be a soldier on opposite ends of the violence spectrum, with him eager to collect the scalps of fallen Nazis, but also showing restraint in other circumstances. For example, after an undercover mission goes horribly wrong with some of his men slaughtered, Aldo attempts to negotiate with the last survivor, a Nazi soldier. He stays true to his word of approaching him unarmed, and in the end ensures that the Nazi trusts him. This adds a more human quality to him, rather than having him be just a straight-faced psychopath that loves to kill. Of course, I must mention Christoph Waltz, who plays SS Colonel Hans Landa. Winning multiple awards, including an Oscar, Waltz completely steals the film. Whenever he appears, you are always anxious as to what he's going to do, made all the more unsettling by his calm persona. One particular nerve shredding scene is when he has a conversation with actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), who is working with the Americans. I won't reveal what happens, but all I'll say is taking off a leg caste has never been more intense. For me, his introduction is one of the best scenes from any film. Landa and his men arrive at a small farmyard home, where he believes a Jewish family are being sheltered. His comparisons to the Jewish people and rats is an incredibly chilling monologue, leading to him calmly gaining a confession as to where exactly the family are hiding. Perfect acting, writing and directing.

The only problem I have with the film is the ending. Again, I don't want to give too much away, and at least it doesn't stop the film from being an overall incredible piece of work. What I didn't like was how one of the characters, shown to be totally in control of every situation, settles an agreement with the enemy that he will receive credit for ending the war. I found his sudden willingness to trust his enemies rather unbelievable, and if something like this really did happen in the war, it should have been left out regardless. Of course, things don't go the character's way, which is something that was inevitable to everyone expect him. 

Despite that one moment, Inglorious Basterds is another shining example of why Quentin Tarantino is one the best filmmakers of his generation. Everything you want from one of his films is here, and that means that it never fails to entertain and have you eagerly anticipating what will happen next. Some may be put off by the violence depicted in the film, but chances are you know that graphic violence is a recurring trait of Tarantino's filmmaking. Go and see it if you haven't already, and if you have seen it, like me you're probably going to be watching it many times more.

Pros:
+ Phenomenal performances from all, particularly Christoph Waltz.
+ Brilliant suspense, leading to a fantastic climax involving pretty much all the characters.
+ The opening sequence, everything about it is absolutely perfect.
+ Portraying both factions as equally sadistic makes for a good dynamic of character personality.

Cons:
- The final scene, as described above.