The H8teful Eight(The Weinstein Company)
There are numerous reasons you should hate Quentin Tarantino's The H8teful Eight. The first is it is full of racist characters who use the N-word excessively. The second is it portrays brutality to women. The third is its excessive violence in general, and its blood-drenched scenes. Fourth, there are crude stories that roll off the lips of the characters. Yes, Tarantino pretty much says and does it all and wallows in the lack of political correctness.
But then Tarantino is the Donald Trump of moviemakers. Political correctness does not attach itself to him. If other people had made this movie, they would have been drummed out of the Hollywood community. Quentin just gets stronger and stronger. He loves to shock and he loves the truth. If his story calls for nudity then the movie is going to have nudity. If it calls for blatant racism in its characters then those characters are going to be as racist as they can be. Whatever it takes to satisfy his cinematic goals, Quentin Tarantino does.
H8teful Eight is a movie full of strong characters caught up in an ingenious plot. We meet the first four during a stagecoach ride. Originally on board are John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter with his prize Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). She is being taken to the Hangman in Red Rock, and Ruth is set to get ten thousand dollars for her delivery - dead or alive.
A blizzard is moving in so the stagecoach is racing to get to Minnie's Haberdashery to wait out the storm. Slowing them down is Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), another bounty hunter who begs for a ride. Later they are flagged down by Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) who also needs a ride. Finally, they reach Minnie's place where they find four men already there. There is the acting owner Bob (Damien Bichir), a hangman named Oswaldo (Tim Roth), a cowboy named Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and a rebel colonel named Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern).
Over the next twenty-four hours, this group will tell each other stories about their pasts and various other lies. They will also eye each other warily and plot how best to accomplish their goals and make a clean getaway. With Ruth, it is all about keeping Daisy alive until they can get to Red Rock. Some members of the group do not want that to happen.
The acting in this movie is solid because the roles are all perfectly cast. Even so the two standouts are Goggins, who just gets better and better with each role he undertakes, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who knows how to be rawly observant as well as smart mouthed and sassy. These two are also the funniest characters in the movie.
The movie is rated R for violence, profanity, and nudity. The nudity is provided by actor Craig Stark who gets to spend his entire time on screen naked in a snow-laden landscape. Brrrrr!
As said, there are many reasons to hate The H8teful Eight but even more reasons to love it. The main reason being that everything in the film is unique. Nobody makes movies like Quentin Tarantino's movies. He has an eye for how the movie should look and an ear for what it should say. He comes out shooting and he stands his ground. When the film is over, the audience is in shock but they can't say they were not entertained.
I scored The H8teful Eight a shell-shocked 8 out of 10.
Jackie K Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com