Quibbles with The Hateful Eight (with Spoilers)

I raved on about The Hateful Eight the other day - the eighth movie of Quentin Tarantino, and I'd say second only in excellence to his first movie, Reservoir Dogs, which in my book is high praise indeed. But I did say in that review that I saw a plot hole or two, and there were a couple of scenes I wasn't thrilled about, so I thought I'd list them here, with a spoiler warning ...

SPOILERS follow ...

I probably missed these two points, because I was so engrossed in the plot, if that makes any sense, but -

1.  How did Walter Goggins' character (Chris Mannix) know so quickly and certainly that Samuel L. Jackson's (Major Warren) letter from Abraham Lincoln was a phony?   This just seemed a little odd, especially after Kurt Russell's hardbitten John Ruth seemed so sure it was real.   Was it just so obvious that the letter couldn't be real - but if so, what was Ruth's problem in not seeing that?

2.  Similarly, how did Warren know at the end that Michael Madsen's Joe Gage was the poisoner, and not Tim Roth's Oswaldo Mobray?  I have a feeling I missed something there, but on the other hand, I can't recall when Gage rather Mobray was revealed by his own hand.

And here are two scenes I could have lived without into this otherwise superbly rendered movie -

1. Actually, a few scenes without blood or bruises on Daisy's (Jennifer Jason Leigh's) face would have been nice.   The blood and bruises became a little tedious.

2.  And I would have been fine with the schlang-sucking scene (that's right Trump, don't pretend you don't know what that means) being a little less explicit.   And, actually, I thought the whole General Smithers' (Bruce Dern) thread was superfluous to the overall narrative, much as I thought Dern put in a commanding performance as always (as did everyone else in the movie).

But these are small quibbles indeed, considering how good the rest of the movie is.   Here, again, is my full review, for more of that.

The Hateful Eight: Reservoir Dogs meet Agatha Christie Out West

I saw The Hateful Eight in New York at my son's invitation tonight, completely different from The Magnificent Seven, as the name suggests, and like all Quentin Tarantino movies, not without flaws, but deeply memorable - and highly enjoyable.

Indeed, The Hateful Eight comes closest to recapturing some of the pattern of Reservoir Dogs, which I still consider Tarantino's masterpiece and best movie.   An ensemble of characters with quirks and patter written by a Shakespeare of the clever line, which is what Tarantino is.   And the plot is pretty good, too.   Since I'll keep this review spoiler free, I won't say much about the whodunit, except that the solution is analogous to the misdirection and ensemble cast we find in some of Agatha Christie's best works.

We saw the movie in 70 mm (wide-screen high-resolution format) - a "special roadshow engagement," as the glossy program which was handed out tells us.   This is a bygone kind of movie making with long screens - employed in Ben Hur, for example - and especially suitable for a stage coach trying to outrun an impending blizzard in the beautifully desolate Wyoming landscape a few years after the Civil War.  Except - well, there was maybe about 10 minutes of the stage coach, total, in the three-hour movie (with an intermission), the rest of which mostly takes place in a single room (which was wide, however, with important characters at the edges).   Indeed, The Hateful Eight could easily have been a play on a stage, and maybe someday it will.   It would certainly work on television, even the old square-screen kind, and at one point in the movie Tarantino even seems to make this very point, by giving us a scene seen through an open barn door, a square image on the wide screen.

Ennio Morricone wrote the score - he's 87 now, and has all the talent he had when he wrote the score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly released in 1966, except there wasn't much good, but plenty of bad-ass and ugly in The Hateful Eight.   Tarantino, in an especially cool touch, begins the movie with a three-minute overture from Morricone.

The actors and characters are all vintage Tarantino, which is to say excellent and welcome.   Some of the acting talent - such as Tim Roth and Michael Madsen - reaches back to Reservoir Dogs.   Samuel Jackson who was so iconic in Pulp Fiction plays a major role (the last chapter of The Hateful Eight - yeah, it has chapters - is entitled "Black Man, White Hell").  Kurt Russell, who in addition to an award-winning career appeared in a few less-renown Tarantino movies a few years ago,  puts in a suitably stalwart performance. And Walton Goggins, unforgettable in his television roles in The Shield and Justify, and a Django alumnus, is on hand with his patented delivery, too.  Tarantino newbies Bruce Dern, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Demián Bichir (who was so effective in Weeds and The Bridge on television) complete the hateful eight nicely (well, "nice" might not be the best word here, especially for Leigh's character, who barely has a scene without blood on her face).

There are inevitable plot holes, characters realizing things a little too quickly, but that's a small quibble about a fine movie - the "8th Film by Quentin Tarantino," as he bills The Hateful Eight - but not hateful at all, except for maybe one or two scenes, and among the best we've seen from Tarantino in the past few decades.

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Here is my brief list of things I wasn't thrilled about in the movie - with spoilers.

Weeds 5: Sneak Preview Review

Well, Weeds Season Five starts up this Monday on Showtime - which was good enough to give me a screener for the first three episodes - so I thought I'd report back to you here with a generally spoiler-free preview (meaning, I'll let you know about general tone but not specific events)....

First, you may recall that we left off last season with Nancy pulling a powerful trump card in what had become a life-and-death game with Esteban. He was set to kill her, having found that she revealed information about his drug lording to the Feds, when she revealed to him that she was carrying his baby, likely a boy.

Season 5 picks up right at that dramatic moment.

A lot was written in the media, last year, about how Weeds had grown darker. That was true, and is even more the case this year. Glints of off-guard hilarity still shine through, but they're fewer and further between the desperation of Nancy's situation.

On the bright and even sweet side, Andy's off to his best season ever, Shane's growing up, and Silas is as good as ever. But Celia's crazier than ever - or, at least, her situation is - and Doug's funnier role is even shorter, so far, than in any previous season.

Nancy's slightly older sister Jill is an attractive addition, and she's wonderfully played by Jennifer Jason Leigh - a lot like Nancy, but a little different.

I'm keyed to see where this season of Weeds will be heading. At this point, it feels closer to The Wire and even The Shield than to the story of little boxes we enjoyed for the first three years. And that's ok - indeed, high praise - but just very different.

See also: Showtime's Sassy Hour of Sin ... Weeds 4.3: Nancy by the Endless Sea ... Sitting Shiva on Weeds and Laughing: 4.4 ... Nancy Gets Spanked and Likes It: 4.8 ... Nancy Has Limits: 4.9 ... Shane and Two Girls: 4.10 ... Nancy Turns a Corner: 4.11 ... The Bitter Fruit of Telling Till: 4.12 ... Finale Beginning: 4.13


8-min podcast review of Weeds

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