Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) is transporting three dead bodies in the dead cold of winter when he is rescued from the cold by a stagecoach transporting John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh).  They pick up another passenger Chris Mannix (Walton Googins) who claims to be the new sheriff of Red Rock.  They take shelter in a stagecoach stopover at a mountain pass (sometime after the Civil War) to wait out a blizzard which is already home to some other guests waiting out the storm.   John Ruth and Major Warren begin to suspect one or more of the people at the stopover is out to rescue Daisy from the hangman’s noose and they must figure out who wants to free her before they get killed.

 

THE HATEFUL EIGHT is an overlong Western mystery which is Tarantino’s homage to Spaghetti Westerns, John Ford westerns, and Seven Little Indians (by Agatha Christie).  It is almost three hours long and it could have been a more effective movie if he cut at least a half hour to an hour out of the movie.  He had more to say with his previous two films, THE INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and DJANGO UNCHAINED.   It is nice to see Tarantino’s favorite troupe of actors together like it is a theater company with some new actors thrown into the mix, but THE HATEFUL EIGHT overstays its welcome by the time the Reservoir Dogs type third act rears its head.  This movie falls in the category of Tarantino movies I don’t like as much as other of his movies.   I wish someone told him to edit it down instead of it being an overlong Western which might play better as stage play at this length instead of an actual movie.  It just falls into the category of overindulgence where the ideas just have too much space to breath.   I just hope Tarantino’s next movie is better than THE HATEFUL EIGHT and along the line of one of the Tarantino movies I actually love.  Sadly, I don’t love this bloated Western which needed to go to the outhouse long before it ended.

 

This review is ©1-7-2016 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com

 

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