Tarantino’s eight feature film “The Hateful Eight” is an indulgent pastiche which thrives on rampant disregard towards just about everything. The film has been a media sweetheart from the go, inspiring journalists to pen endless articles based on topics ranging from the upset caused by the leaked scripts, Taratino’s stubborn insistence on filming and screening on Ultra Panavision 70 and various quibbles between distributors and exhibitors. A solid groundwork of hype had been laid to pave the way to a masterpiece.

The vast snow-covered Colorado landscapes where the plot begins to unfold successfully reflect on the icy relationships and tough life of the characters inhabiting a space similar to the westerns of mid-20^th century. The cold and constant threat they must have been feeling is masterfully imbued in Robert Richardson’s justifiably Oscar-nomination worthy cinematography. When the distrustful band of strangers retire to Minnie’s Haberdashery for some shelter for an approaching snow storm, they are met with another band of similarly distrustful gentlemen. The visuals change gear at this point and start concentrating on the minute details of people’s faces for hints about their motives, plans and character. Due to the imminent force majeure they will all have to put up with each other in Minnie’s cosy abode filled with coffee and stew until the storm retreats. Having committed a sin and watched a digital screening of “Hateful Eight” due to the lack of more old-school options nearby, commenting on the benefits or wastefulness of Ultra Panavision 70 would be sheer speculation. Tarantino’s relentless stubbornness to stick to film is a laudable marketing ploy which gave temporary work to many highly-skilled projectionists, but it also adds a second layer which has nothing whatsoever to do with the film which starts overshadow the story itself.  Despite all that, it cannot be denied that “Hateful Eight” is a well-shot motion picture even without the crackle and noise of the projector. 

The story, on the other hand, fails to reach the heights of the visuals and fuss around Tarantino’s production choices. The chamber piece of eight stranded men in a cabin carried by mutual feelings of hate and distrust boils down to a few hours of leery glimpses and over-eager drawl. The feeling of encasing the whole of America in one room never really materialised for me, the eight characters never became anything more than distrustful strangers with not much interesting to say. The hints given to solve the mystery of what happened to Minnie or who is plotting against whom are very few and very odd. The jelly bean mystery, for example, drew to such a far-fetched conclusion that it might as well be called rubbish on the floor. Once the killing gets going in the very end (surely that is not a spoiler in a Tarantino film), it is like they had found the Necronomicon and put a bomb in a ketchup factory. There has always been some finesse, rhyme or reason to Tarantino’s endless killing scenes (even in “Kill Bill”), which seems to be completely absent from “The Hateful Eight”. Though some might consider this “wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am” approach to ending a film enjoyable and in tune with his general “don’t care” attitude, others might simply deem it lazy.

  “The Hateful Eight” is a flashy, glossy and stunning film with a bloated, lazy and brash plot. The film about the town musicians of Bremen gathering unwillingly in a pit stop in the middle of nowhere fails to enter into a discussion about the big overarching topics of mankind (justice, race, truth, etc) and does not delve deep enough into the nuances needed for a chamber murder mystery. “The Hateful Eight” is not as much a film as a phenomenon, because everything else around it (aura of the auteur, nostalgia for physical film, etc) is so much bigger and louder than the film itself. It is a film by a director who is trying to make a point and does not care what everyone thinks of it, but it seems that the film is just a medium to his message. The world is Tarantino’s oyster but “The Hateful Eight” is the shell instead of the pearl.