The Hateful Eight – 2016 – Tarantinos eighth film
I will still claim that Quentin Tarantino isn’t a great filmmaker. Many of his films are entertaining to be sure but he’s not a great filmmaker. He is a great imitator of what other already have done before him. And he’s very good with dialog of course. He could write a whole film with just dialog and it would probably be spellbinding. That’s a good quality of course. It doesn’t hurt to select great actors for you movies either. I mean, people like Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell doesn’t really need instructions how to act in my book. They just du it and the result i magnificent. In that perspective The Hateful Eight might very well be the best movie from Tarantino yet!
The story isn’t told entirely in linear terms but that’s nothing new when it comes to Tarantinos movies. I would actually be rather disappointed if it were just a plain story. I know some people have a hard time following the story when it’s told in chunks like that but I don’t have any problems with it what so ever. In The Hateful Eight it’s even very obvious that there is more to come when a conventional movie might have ended. But enough about that. It’s not so important what the movie is about. This is more form than content. More exterior than interior.
It looks very nice and there are some really violent scenes that works very nice. They bring some kind of chock value and soon you realize that the script dares to kill of just about anyone of the cast. Speaking of that. There is a really sad part in this film, the destruction of a very old and valuable guitar. Apparently Tarantino borrowed one for one of the scenes and when the time came to have it smashed it should have been replaced by a replica. This wasn’t done so the vintage 1870 guitar borrowed from the Martin Guitar Museum was broken beyond repair. Sad indeed. But at least there was genuine reactions from the cast in that scene.
As this is a western the music by Ennio Morricone is very welcome. No one makes soundtracks for a western like Morricone. If this is his best work ever? Hard to say, the guy has made so many soundtrack in his career and most of them are great. It brings an extra level to the movies and The Hateful Eight is a very entertaining movie. As I said before. The dialog is top notch and the factor of surprise in some of the scenes are great. By the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie title are pun considering that this is Quentin Tarantinos eighth movie.
