The Hateful 8

The Hateful 8
This is a GREAT movie and is THEATER WORTHY

I love how playful Quentin Tarantino is with his films. Here we have Tarantino’s 8^th film, as illustriously displayed at the beginning of the film, and in accordance with that we see that there are 8 hateful characters in this film. Now, I don’t know if that was on purpose or just a happy accident but either way, it’s cool! Hateful 8 . . . in Tarantino’s 8^th film. How quaint.

So the Hateful Eight is a story about a bounty hunter named “The Hangman”, played by Kurt Russell, and getting his bounty to the noose. His bounty, played captivatingly by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a $10,000 payday by the name of Daisy Domergue (pronounced “Daumer-goo”). Due to the large bounty in his hands The Hangman has his reason to stay aware. When a black bounty hunter and a random stranger show up out of nowhere, with a blizzard right behind them no less, The Hangman grows extra paranoid. Still, having a sense of morality he lets them tag along so as to not catch their death in the cold. With the blizzard upon them they all take shelter at a place called Minnie’s Haberdashery, ran by a woman named Minnie. Now, while they’re safe from the forces of nature they aren’t safe from the folly of man, for at least one the characters in the haberdashery is not who they say they are. As per the previews one of these hateful 8 are in cahoots with Daisy and are willing to do whatever, and kill whoever, they have to in order to free her. The rest of the ride is finding out who it is and how it all ends.

Admittedly it’s a very simple plot, perhaps the most simple of all of Tarantino’s films, but it doesn’t matter when it comes to Quentin Tarantino. With this movie the focus is less on the plot and more on the characters. Keep in mind that this is a decade or two after the end of the civil war and that makes all these characters just that much more interesting. Most of these characters are either extremely racist or were on opposite sides of the civil war. Some being warriors, majors, or even generals, and others being the generation that grew up during the civil war. They’re all openly racist to some extent at one point or another, some are sexist, or harboring some other form of bias, but all in all they are all hateful. As the title PERFECTLY implies they all have personalities, character traits, or tendencies with make them hated. Only a few of the small supporting characters are likeable but they don’t remain in the film long . . . not saying they die, I’m just saying, the film wants to focus on the characters that you will LOVE to HATE. For this reason Tarantino wants to keep the focus on them. You don’t really have anyone to root for in the film, no clear cut good guy or bad, you just have these interesting characters in an interesting situation and you get to watch it all play out. Quite frankly, in terms of storytelling, the feeling of simply seeing what unfolds is refreshing, not finding the person you’re supposed to root for and then rooting for them throughout the film.

What’s cool about the film is the historical accuracy in combination with the way it was shot, the Ultra Panavision 70mm. The tensions between the civil war veterans in the film and the attitudes over the emancipation of slavery is very raw and very real. They pulled no punches in those days and they pull no punches in this film. Whatever some racist war vet is thinking he says, plain and simple. They also talk a lot about Lincoln. You can almost tell who was on which side of the war depending on how they talk about him. Now, one of the biggest inaccuracies, so big it’s actually kind of funny (which might’ve been the point), is the bounty price on Daisy’s head (and a few others). While I won’t tell you they enormity of the bounties I am sure that when you hear them you’ll realize, as I did, that that amount just does not mesh with post-civil war times. A cool trivia fact about the film is that it’s apparently set in the same universe as Django Unchained . . . which may be why Christopher Waltz, who played the dentist bounty hunter in Django, wasn’t picked for Kurt Russell’s “Hangman” bounty hunter. And if you’re curious, Waltz was indeed up for the role.

Personally I believe this may be the best written script to come out in theaters this year. I say that because for the first 40 minutes, roughly, most of the movie is pure dialogue. What I mean by that is, while the first 4 characters meet and get acquainted there’s very little action in terms of punching, holding guns, and the like, but for about 70% of the time during the first 40 minutes it’s just two men talking . . . and then 3 . . . with a woman now and again. Some of you may not know this but that is usually a big “no-no” in script writing. You want to keep you dialogue short and to the point and let the action take over the pages. Instead we see the exact opposite here. Now, with myself and anyone else in the film community then a lot of dialogue isn’t a problem. We in this community love story telling and so two or three men talking for 40 minutes isn’t boring to us. However, to most people going to see movies out there that isn’t the case. For the majority of people they want basic dialogue of what’s going on and details on who’s who but with actual action taking over the screen. What I witnessed in the theater was every single person, from the old to the young, plain to the eccentric, and from one color or gender to the other, all with their eyes completely glued to the screen just to listen to these men talk. To me that says that that is some damn fine writing! And it was throughout.

What we’ve come to expect from Tarantino films is exactly what we get here in terms of gritty gore, radical racial slurs, and profusely perverse acts of degradation that make you squint. At the same time, you can’t keep your eyes on the screen for a moment! With the previous Tarantino film, Django Unchained, holding the record for most uses of the infamous “N” word, at 116 times, this film was a far cry from it. Still, the word is said with the same disturbing indifference as Django Unchained. In fact when it comes to the perversions, the gore, the grittiness, you can say the same about all of it. It’s not quite where Django was but it’s on a level right below it. And ladies get ready, cause you get to see a side of Channing Tatum he hasn’t really shown yet . . . he’s a bad boy in this film!

 

Enjoy!!!