Wyoming, 19th century. A terrible winter storm leads a stagecoach to find shelter in Minnie's desolate lodge. The guests are bounty hunters, African-American Warren and Ruth, who handcuffed Daisy, a wanted criminal, and intends to hand her over to the authorities for hanging, as well as Sheriff Mannix. The lodge also hosts five other people, but the owner, Minnie, is suspiciously missing. When someone poisons coffee, which leads to Ruth and two others dying, Warren and Mannix deduct that some of the tenants are Daisy's henchmen. The Mexican, Gage and Mobray are killed because they previously killed Minnie and took over the lodge to wait to free Daisy. Her brother, who was hiding in the atic, is also eliminated. Warren and Mannix are wounded and execute Daisy by hanging.
Quentin Tarantino's eight film (or ninth, if "Kill Bill" is considered two films), "The Hateful Eight" once again shows the director's divisive features: a few great moments of passionate high art, which are then contaminated by his inability to resist inserting trash and bad taste. The set-up of an isolated lodge where several character are trapped inside by snow, but don't know who of them is the villain, is a genius western remake of Carpenter's "The Thing", even featuring Kurt Russell in an inspired performance of bounty hunter Ruth (who talks like John Wayne). However, at a running time of three hours, the storyline is way overstretched and wonders off into several directions, featuring strangely boring, overlong dialogues for Tarantino, who was known for his witty writing. Some traces of that inspired writing are still there, though, just not in enough of a quantity: in one fine moment, two Civil War veterans, Warren, a Union Major, and Smithers, a retired Confederate General, clash with each other, so one guest simply suggests to divide the whole lodge into two sides, the North and South, with each side for someone, in order to avoid any further escalation. In another, Sheriff Mannix wonders if it is justified to hang a woman who committed crimes, with Mobray replying: "Well, 'till they invent a trigger a woman can't pull, if you're a hang man, you're going to hang woman." As always, Tarantino has troubles constraining himself, falling into excess and sadistic primitivism (Warren's story of how he forced a man to walk naked in snow at gunpoint; poisoned people vomiting blood...) whereas he misses some golden opportunities: Ruth is eliminated far too soon in the story, whereas the best character in the entire film, the wonderfully charming Zoë Bell as Six-Horse Judy, is given only 3-4 minutes in a flashback, but is way more interesting than any of the other main characters. Still, there is almost some sort of Hawksian touch in the sequences of the protagonists eating stew in the lodge, getting to know each other, which gives "Eight" some plus points. One moment of wisdom will stick with you, the one where Mobray gives a brilliant plea against lynching and for a neutral trial, arguing "that dispassion is the very essence of justice. For justice delivered without dispassion is always in danger of not being justice".
Grade:++
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