K-SCORE: 85
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Demian Bichir, Bruce Dern, James Park, and Tatum
Spoiler Level: Moderate
“Which of the eleven odd characters that Tarantino introduced in this film constitute the specific Hateful Eight?”
Most of Tarantino’s films I took slight issue with when I first saw them, the exception being Pulp Fiction, which I loved right from the start. Then, over time, I came to appreciate them more and more, so I’m hesitant to critique The Hateful Eight having recognized this pattern in myself. In a few years, I could be saying this film is brilliant from top to bottom.
“ravaging racists, torturing turncoats, and butchering run-of-the-mill bastards”
Probably not though. It’s pretty good. Tarantino creates interesting characters and he doesn’t care too much where his plots end up as long as he feels he explored the characters thoroughly and had them interact in unique ways. The Hateful Eight is in keeping with that tradition, featuring a small cast of bounty hunters, criminals, and inn-going southerners spending a snow-stormy night at Minnie’s Haberdashery in Wyoming. Also in keeping with Tarantino’s tradition, the film is exceptionally violent and who takes a bullet (or drinks some poison coffee and vomits blood for five to six minutes) appears based on nothing more than how Tarantino felt he wanted to proceed when he showed up to film that day. Believe it or not, I love this. He has me on my toes as I’m watching because I genuinely don’t know what will happen to these characters and storylines. Also, either Tarantino’s sense of profundity of message is misaligned with 99% of other storytellers, or he just doesn’t care if his stories fizzle as a result of - how do I put this - overkilling? He could simply be an anarchist. I tend to lean toward the former though. He likes ravaging racists, torturing turncoats, and butchering run-of-the-mill bastards. Mean men gotta hang.
Nah, story-wise The Hateful Eight is very Tarantino, oddly enjoyable, and consequently just-fine. My main problem with the narrative is pacing. Take the first forty-minutes for example. Major Marquis Warren hitches a ride with John Ruth, trying to beat out the blizzard. They pick up Chris Mannix along the way. Then they arrive at the Haberdashery so the plot involving the bounty target, the film’s only woman, the ensnared Daisy Domergue, can unfold. Warren, Ruth, and Mannix spend the entirety of the first hour talking about politics, pointing guns at each other, arguing about the best ways for them all to get to where they’re going, discussing why they’re going there, knocking each other out of the stagecoach, bickering over a letter, etc. Later on, none of that matters at all. Ruth, Mannix, and Warren are all basically who they say they are, and the conflicts regarding the outlaw band overshadow everything they were discussing. So why is so much emphasis placed on it. You could argue that Tarantino believed in the thematic significance of Domergue spitting on the Lincoln letter or Mannix standing his ground and not letting John Ruth disarm him before getting in the carriage, but I think it’s really just that Tarantino didn’t know how his film was going to end when he was filming that section, and in the editing room he liked the performances of the talented actors so much and he liked the characters he’d created so much that he didn’t want to cut anything. It’s fine by me to have a story that isn’t completely streamlined toward a destination. They recreate life better that way. But this one feels slow entirely too often, and largely irrelevant details are better off interspersed throughout instead of clumped up into entire sections.
Other complaints: The narration in two sections creates an inconsistency in the form of the film. Who is that narrator? If we can’t taste Minnie’s stew and have never heard of Sweet Dave or his chair, it’s not satisfying to have Marquis Warren use those clues to explain how he knew the band was lying. And which of the eleven odd characters that Tarantino introduces in this film constitute the specific Hateful Eight?
Yet for the pretty substantial problem of pacing and the lesser issues regarding the story’s details, The Hateful Eight is highly entertaining. It has some moments that are really tremendous, such as O.B., the driver, having to constantly go outside, or everything about “Bob’s” demise, or the Marquis Warren line about how the man in the basement better produce another pistol out his ass. Tarantino’s a weirdo, (at one point our amplifier overheated and so all the dialogue cut-out and we didn't realize it wasn't just a strange Tarantino artistic choice for about four minutes) but his films are better than most. Also, they’re original, and he only makes one every few years, so the market isn’t oversaturated with his style. And, if my personal history is any guide, some day I’ll be issuing a retraction on anything negative in this review.
Addendum June, 2026: No! The ten minutes spent on hammering boards into the door is crucial! As is everything about Six-Horse Judy, the stakes and ropes to the outhouse, and the poor black guy they kill in the shed. Brilliant!