The Hateful Eight

The Gist: A severe snow storm in Wyoming's already harsh winter, forces a bounty hunter to seek refuge with his prized prisoner in a remote outpost. The place is teeming with several seemingly wicked individuals. Trust is a hard-to-find commodity.

Full disclosure, I'm not a Quentin Tarantino fan. His work is always original and rather unique, but it often feels pretentious and out of reach. I'm a movie lover but I clearly lack the breadth of knowledge necessary to paste together all the different homages and references he portends to imbed in his work.

As a result, some of his work I like (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Inglorious Basterds), and some I loathe (Kill Bill: Vol. 1 was atrocious; I found it so awful that I never even went to see Vol. 2, which for me is unusual).

Anyway, The Hateful Eight is one of his best as far as I'm concerned. It is well written, photographed beautifully, and expertly directed.

The eight from the title (Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern) are all perfectly cast. Jackson and Russell especially are great, and Leigh is so good she was rightfully nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

The movie, to Tarantino's delight, actually won Ennio Morricone his first Best Score Oscar outright (he has an Honorary one also) after 5 previous nominations!

The Bottom Line: The Hateful Eight is not for the squeamish because of the high level of violence and gore, but that's to be expected in a Tarantino film. If those don't concern you, you'll find humor, drama, wit, and suspense galore, enough that you won't even mind the long runtime (167 minutes!).

Grade: 8