The premise of Quentin Tarantino's latest bloody-minded feature, The Hateful Eight, feels like an Agatha Christie whodunit as reimagined by Sergio Leone. In post-Civil War Wyoming, a group of strangers converge on an isolated trading post just ahead of a fierce blizzard. By the time bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) arrives at this sanctuary, his situation is already uneasy. While escorting wanted murderer Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the gallows, his stagecoach encounters fellow manhunter Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and the new local sheriff Chris Mannix (Walter Goggins), both horseless. Ruth is inveigled into giving them both a lift, notwithstanding the tempting $10,000 bounty on Domergue. The quartet finds other unfamiliar faces upon arriving at the trading post: Mexican caretaker Bob (Demián Bichir), local hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), laconic cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and former Confederate general Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern).
Ruth lays his cards on the table, practically daring any man to wrest his prisoner from him during their snowbound captivity. Union loyalists who have previously met one another, Ruth and Warren are ostensibly the viewer's surrogates, yet The Hateful Eight is the sort of thriller that simmers with omni-directional suspicion. Everyone seems to have a secret, and everyone's motives are suspect. When the lies come out and the bullets start to fly, the film veers into Sam Peckinpah country, where the tension is grueling and gore copious. As a pseudo-chamber piece, Eight is gripping entertainment, showcasing Tarantino's characteristic command of mise en scène and exaggerated dialog. If the film disappoints, it's strictly due to the sense that the director has been here before, thematically speaking. Eight revisits the prominent preoccupations of his prior works—aging, identity, fame, myth, deception, and righteous violence—just in a nastier, more cynical key.
A special Roadshow version of the The Hateful Eight will open exclusively at the Wehrenberg Ronnies 20 Cine on December 25. The Roadshow version is projected from Ultra Panavision 70 mm film and includes an overture and intermission. The standard, digitally projected version of The Hateful Eight, which is six minutes shorter and includes slight differences in select shots, will open in wide release on January 1.
