The Hateful Eight

As most of you know, I've been a fan and friend of Mr. Quentin Tarantino for a long time - since he screened "Reservoir Dogs" at Sundance.  I got a special invitation to see "The Hateful Eight" in 70mm at the huge Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC. 

As you would expect, it was a packed house and an excited crowd, there to see Quentin introduce the cast (all except Samuel L. Jackson), and Quentin's one of the best introducers in the business.

The film opened with a still piece of art of a stagecoach, set against the Rocky Mountains, as 10 minutes of Ennio Morricone music played.  Then the film began - it starts off pretty slow, with lots of dialogue as the various characters are introduced to the story.

I could have done without a lot of the extra exposition - let's get to the anticipated conflict!

Finally, all of the Hateful Eight were assembled in the haberdashery and the bloody standoff was put into motion.  And what a bloody standoff is was - heads exploded, hands were blown off, testicles were eviscerated and bodies were hung.  And it's all done with a dose of Tarantino black humor, it's wonderful -

My only suggestion would be to cut a lot of the early redundant dialogue and bring it down from a three-hour epic to a more manageable two hours.

Somehow, I didn't mind a film like "The Revenant" being three hours long, I wasn't bored for the entire length of that film. 

I'm happy, though, to give "The Hateful Eight" an "A-" - it's vintage Tarantino.

--Bill P.