The Hateful Eight (2015) Movie Review – 8/10

“While racing toward the town of Red Rock in post-Civil War Wyoming, bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his fugitive prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh) encounter another bounty hunter (Samuel L. Jackson) and a man who claims to be a sheriff. Hoping to find shelter from a blizzard, the group travels to a stagecoach stopover located on a mountain pass. Greeted there by four strangers, the eight travelers soon learn that they may not make it to their destination after all.”

Score: 8/10

tl,dr: a heartwarming & uplifting tale of Abraham Lincoln’s pen pal in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Power ranking of the Hateful Eight:

  1. Samuel L Jackson as Major Marquis Warren, a Civil War veteran bounty hunter.
  2. Walton Goggins as Chris Mannix, a soon-to-be-sheriff of Red Rock
  3. Jennifer Jason Leigh as Daisy Domergue, a criminal
  4. Demian Bichir as Bob, a loveable Mexican
  5. Tim Roth as Oswaldo Mobray, the alleged hangman of Red Rock
  6. Kurt Russell as John Ruth, literally Dog the Bounty Hunter
  7. Michael Madsen as Joe Gage, don’t know if they ever really cover his backstory
  8. Bruce Dern as some old general guy, also didn’t know this was Laura Dern’s dad until today.

Set in the aftermath of the Civil War, Samuel L. Jackson finds himself stranded in a Wyoming snow storm without a horse and 3 dead bodies to transport, at the top of the film as one typically does. He comes across Dog The Bounty Hunter Kurt Russell and his carriage transporting a certain criminal, JJL, to Red Rock to be hung for crimes against humanity. Samuel L sweet talks his way into hitching a ride as the 2 are essentially coworkers in the wild west, and soon enough they run into yet another dude – Walton Goggins – stuck in the middle of nowhere, also without a horse. Now, I’ve never attempted to traverse the Wyoming country side in the dead of winter in the 1800s, but there’s gotta be some sort of contingency planning these people could be doing instead of just “losing their horse” and ending up fucked in a blizzard. This squad makes their way to the best named locale in movie history, Minnie’s Haberdashery, where they eventually meetup with the rest of the eight to wait out the blizzard.

This may be the 8th movie Quentin Tarantino has done, but it feels a lot like his first – Reservoir Dogs (1992) – just set in the wild west instead of LA.. Sure, Steve Buscemi isn’t in this talking about how hates tipping, but 90% of the movie takes place in one place, in this case the aforementioned haberdashery. Some people might use words like “parlour-room thriller” to describe a movie like this, I’m not friends with people who use words like that. As seems to be the case with a lot of his later work, The Hateful Eight is looooong as almost 3 hours of runtime, but with good pacing it didn’t feel slow or unnecessarily long. Once the action heats up, it heats up quick.

There are a shocking amount of n-bombs dropped in this movie, all with hard r’s. I considered trying to count the occurrences, but after about 20 minutes I think we were up to 20+ and I gave up. Now someone smarter than me might say “yea you idiot, you just said it takes place in the immediate aftermath of the civil war and Samuel L Jackson is the main character” or “dude, did you watch Django?” – fair points. For reference it’s actually the silver medal winning n-word usage for Tarantino, only 47 utterances of the word compared to Django’s 110 (a movie literally about slavery).

“That n****r in the stable has a letter from Abraham Lincoln” – multiple

There is also a shocking amount of violence in the movie, which is also no surprise given it’s Tarantino. In particular, there’s a lot of violence directed at JJL’s character, Daisy, at the hands of Dog the Bounty Hunter Kurt Russell. From the get go he’s beating up on this woman, rightfully show as she’s a wanted criminal, and he could just kill her since she’s wanted dead or alive. Wait are you allowed to say that in 2024? It’s a movie – deal with it.

“Now, Daisy, I want us to work out a signal system of communication. When I elbow you real hard in the face, that means: shut up.” – Kurt the Bounty Hunter

There are many other “problematic” themes in this movie on top of excessive usage of the n-word, and domestic violence against [wanted] woman. In no particular order there is also: murder (expected), multiple versions of amputation including toes, arms, and cocks (unexpected), rape, and being pen pals with a sitting president of the United States at the time – Abraham Lincoln. If you’re going to be upset by any of the themes above, why are you considering watching a Tarantino movie? Go watch Inside Out 2 or Moana.

“Say adios to your huevos” – author unknown

In summary, it’s exactly what you expect from Tarantino – a good movie that is also entertaining. There was and is chatter that it’s one of his worst film….no, that’s Deathproof (2007).

Spoilers / Reaction:

  • I can’t be the only one who confused Tim Roth and Christoph Waltz. I thought for sure that was Hans Landa in the haberdashery for basically the entire movie until I saw the credits.
  • I didn’t care much for Kurt Russell’s acting in this, despite how epic his character is. Very over the top at times, bordering on theatrical.
  • A few laugh-out-loud moments:
    • Samuel L punching tf out of JJL’s character in Chapter 1 while they’re in the carriage. Don’t you dare talk shit about Abraham Lincoln’s favorite penpal.
    • Samuel L getting shot in the penis in the climax of the movie.
    • Channing Tatum getting domed.

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