‘The Hateful Eight’
› Rating: R for strong bloody violence, a scene of violent sexual content, language and some graphic nudity› Running time: 2 hours, 47 minutes (3 hours and 7 minutes, with 12-minute intermission, for 70 mm Roadshow screenings)
“The Hateful Eight” is not for the faint at heart. What Quentin Tarantino movie is? But while cinema’s favorite cinephile is up to some of his old tricks in his eighth feature, this more than three-hours-long drawing-room thriller also feels like a step forward for the wayward enfant terrible – a step toward maturity.
That’s not to say he’s mellowed. You need only spend a minute with 87-year-old Ennio Morricone’s throbbing, malicious score to know that to be true. Instead, Tarantino shows relaxed power with “The Hateful Eight.” It’s easy authority that’s less manic than the cinematic language we’ve grown to expect from him. And it still packs a punch to the gut, or, in the spirit of Jennifer Jason Leigh’s murderous prisoner, some repeated blows to the head.
This tale of eight unsavoury creatures stranded in a one-room haberdashery in the middle of a nasty Wyoming blizzard is in no hurry to get where it’s going, and the audience is better off for it.
It’s a whodunit when no one has done anything yet – more like a who’s gonna do it and what exactly are they gonna do. Everyone is bad, everyone has a secret, and everyone is the hero of their own story.