The Hateful Eight

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." - John 8:44

Spoilers ahead.

It’s like coming into a room inhabited by worthless and unreasonable men and women. All of them sitting in a hot mess, glowering at you. That’s what rehashing the Hateful Eight feels like.

But there’s an opportunity here for me to write this pseudo-review (I came late and missed Chapter One). The characters reflect the title successfully in their expressions of duplicity and spite, and Tarantino pulls you all the way in like a master storyteller at the halfway mark of the movie, with a sudden left-field “whodunit” scenario. I took greater interest when I heard the production resembled a stage play. It was almost like watching Black Mass, which is a film 2 + hours long of keeping company with barely restrained rage and graphic murder despite Johnny Depp’s most gripping portrayal.

Kurt Russell as John Ruth and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Daisy Domergue

As a prisoner caught by Kurt Russell’s bounty hunter, Jennifer Jason Leigh’s face is progressively stained with bruises, blood and gore. Her two front teeth are gone. She has a severely unpleasant way of talking. She is the walking dead; rotted to the core and degenerating. She’s like the black heart of the movie waiting to be cut out. Samuel L. Jackson is Major Marquis Warren, a former union soldier and now a bounty hunter who takes notice of a confederate general, in the haberdashery they take shelter in, Sanford Smithers, played by Bruce Dern. Warren recalled that Smithers infamously executed black soldiers in cold blood, and so during dinner, he attempts to strike up a friendly conversation with the general about family. But soon it’s clear that he’s feigning neighborly kindness. Warren leaves a pistol at Smithers’ side and walks toward the end of the room testifying of an encounter with Smithers’ son. It’s an absolutely horrifying account of humiliation in the freezing snow made more deplorable by the fact that Warren might’ve been lying very convincingly about the whole meeting. In the depiction, I wondered how an actor in the rightness of his mind- no matter how talented and skilled- could simulate that depiction. That might make me sound squeamish and square, but I rightly disagree. It’s of sound mind and health that I note it. It makes me sad that there are diehard fans that will purchase this movie and enjoy a viewing of that scene over and over again, rave about how great it is and not be hurt mentally in some significant way. Worse, not try to live it out on some enemy. Is that far-fetched? Not in this age. As a writer, it’s always difficult to make decisions that would be at the expense of character—and I believe that Marquis Warren could’ve done what he described to the general. What’s troubling to me is not enough people are sickened by it. 

Bruce Dern as General Sanford Smithers

In New York City, there are inner city children who have to live through commonplace emotional and mental horrors because the parents of their school mates have taught them to be wicked and apathetic. To step out and do something about it brings about a self-righteous backlash, despite children and adults hurting. Now, what I said would be viewed as judgmental and horrible—even though it’s true. No amount of trouble or poverty can justify the actions that cause people to suffer in this city. Most people don’t want to think about that, but watching a flashback of Marquis Warren forcing a man to demoralize himself is, well, somehow that’s cool. “That’s acceptable.” The horror is further compounded by the face of the general who is receiving this story about his son as true. The general snatches up the gun, but Warren shoots him dead in self-defense. The movie on the whole is more of a horror than a western, in the traditional sense of blood and violent murder.

Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren

The Hateful Eight is extraordinarily perverse… but critics raved and gave the film mostly positive reviews. Yet, they gave mostly negative reviews to the movie, War Room which still garnered over 70 million to date.

But Quentin Tarantino has talent and skill enough to captivate in such a strong way that he causes me to forget the stomach-turning disgust I feel. A poisoning of coffee leads to a new high in tension for the movie. Guns are cocked and aimed in that haberdashery surrounded by an unforgiving blizzard. It was brilliant! Then Marquis Warren is shot in his groin and I am truthfully relieved. How fitting. How absolutely poetic. I breathe easier despite the fact he’s on the floor grasping his mid-section and whining in agony. As the Psalm says, the wicked withering away like grass… having repeatedly rejected redemption. As a matter of fact, there is one scene of a pole with Christ on the cross partially concealed by snow, as if out of reach from the Hellfire Eight. From there, it’s edge-of-your-seat writing and vision with exciting precision to a satisfying ride and conclusion. True to form by the end of the movie, the demonic hatred in the last surviving men in the room is seen in taunting smiles at Leigh’s character as she is hung by her neck.

These characters are compelling, but you don’t celebrate them. You don’t enthrone them anymore than you would Tony Montana.

One of my co-workers complained to me that the movie was “… boring, but it was still good.” I know what he meant. There’s a lot of banter for backstory at the beginning. I think it’s well-placed for character. I like it. I’m not speaking as an authority on writing, but I think too often movies are formulaic and Tarantino’s work is not… and it still succeeds.

To read the full plot, you can click here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hateful_Eight