Even though I’m probably going to finish this post
with a few thousand more words in place, there’s a part of me that’s struggling
to describe The Hateful Eight. Part of that has to do with the fact that I
knew virtually nothing about it going in besides the title and Quentin
Tarantino’s name attached to it. (He
didn’t steer me wrong with Django
Unchained, so he’s obviously earned my trust.) Information probably hasn’t been hard to come
by, since I’ve seen articles go up here and there on the internet. I never got around to reading them -- except
for one review that I clicked on, but couldn’t be bothered to actually
read. Because reasons.
Part of me thinks that that’s a mistake; staying
well-informed is vital in a lot of circumstances, even if it’s for something as
seemingly trivial as the entertainment industry (inasmuch as the haven of art
and creativity can be “trivial”). On the
other hand, maybe it’s nice to be surprised every now and then. If you don’t know what’s coming, then the
surprise can be that much more satisfying.
Or as pleasant as bathing with angry piranhas, but whatever.
So where does that leave The Hateful Eight? Pared
down to basics, I think it’s a good movie -- great, even. But it is absolutely, ABSOLUTELY NOT for the faint of heart. And I’ll explain what I mean…with enough
spoilers to shroud the entire west coast in darkness.
Here’s the setup for the movie. Hot off the heels of the Civil War, bounty
hunter John Ruth is carting the convicted prisoner Daisy through a wintry
Wyoming to the town of Red Rock for hanging.
Along the way, he runs into Union soldier Marquis Warren and Red Rock
sheriff-to-be Chris Mannix, and so all four of them are en route to town. Unfortunately, a blizzard rolls in and forces
them to take shelter in a haberdashery, along with another set of
travelers.
With the inclusion of an old Confederate general,
a taciturn cowboy, a dandy of an Englishman, and the Hispanic employee left to
manage the store in the owners’ absence, the titular “hateful eight” are
assembled. Except the guy who carted
Ruth and crew to the shop in the first place is there, too, so I guess it’s technically nine?
So basically, the movie lies to you just by having
a title. We’re off to a rollicking good
start.
The trick to the movie is that -- as these things
tend to go -- something isn’t right about the situation. John Ruth suspects that there’s some trouble
brewing in such close quarters, and someone’s scheming to bail Daisy out of her
date with the gallows, as per some pre-arranged agreement or special bond. Essentially, there’s a mystery to be solved,
and pretty much everyone’s a suspect.
That might not be such a bad thing, if not for the fact that everyone
there -- except maybe the stagecoach OB -- is dangerous as all hell.
Well, let me rephrase that. True to the title, virtually every (main)
character in The Hateful Eight is a
terrible person. Ostensibly, the whole
thing is supposed to be a whodunit mystery; virtually everything that happens
takes place in close quarters, i.e. a couple of sets (the shop, the stagecoach,
and the areas around them). It’s more
about the threat of violence than trying to figure out “who shot Mr. Burns”, at
least early on. That’s not to say that
the bodies don’t start dropping, but what’s important throughout the movie is
that tensions are high, and high for a reason.
Or, to put it a different way? I
almost feel like the movie doesn’t need a mystery plot -- or any plot --
because it excels on the strength of its horrible, horrible people.
That seems like something pretty backwards to say,
especially if you’ve seen my stuff before.
“Characters should be likable!”
“Characters should be charismatic!”
“Characters should have synergy!”
And so on, and so forth, shouted into the night, every night. I’ve been burned by movies and games that try
to present bad guys as good guys, and good guys as bad guys. And sure, I skew toward the squeaky-clean Boy
Scouts. I prefer optimism and hope in my
heroes, and my stories at large.
But they’re not a requirement. Not even close. What I require from a story is a good set of
characters, because -- say it with me now -- characters create opportunities.
And even though I saw this movie pretty much at the start of the new
year, these hateful, terrible, awful, no-good people are going to be a solid
example of what good stories can offer.
Let’s use the big one as an example. Samuel L. Jackson is one of the big names in
this movie, who reprises his role as Nick Fury plays the aforementioned
(Major) Marquis Warren. At the outset,
he seems like an okay guy. He’s
traveling on his own, but runs into some bad luck and ends up more or less
stranded in the frigid Wyoming wilderness -- until Ruth rolls up, and gives him
a golden opportunity. You learn a little
about who he is, and what he’s about, and you think, “Okay, he might be a
little roguish, and a little rough around the edges, but he’s all right. He must be the movie’s anti-hero or
something.” The capper for all of this
is the letter he’s got on his person at all times -- a personally-addressed
gift from none other than Abraham Lincoln.
Then Daisy spits on it, and he clocks her in the
face hard enough to make her tumble out of the stagecoach. Then the movie goes a little further, and you
find out that the letter is a fake Warren used to con people (Ruth included)
into giving him a second look. And then
he hangs out with the old Confederate general in a scene that makes it look
like they’re going to put aside their differences, despite them being on
different sides in the war…but the good feelings don’t last. Because then, Warren -- with the knowledge
that that general burned black soldiers alive just to keep his white ones going
strong -- explains in grave detail how he forced the general’s son to walk
through the snow in the nude, and subsequently suck off Warren so he could maybe get a blanket…only to die instead.
And then Warren reveals that telling the story --
however true or false it might have been -- was all part of his master
plan. Because once the general seizes a
gun and takes aim, Warren can shoot him dead virtually without
repercussion. Because “self-defense”. And then he drinks brandy to celebrate.
There’s an argument to be made that Warren is the
most hateful of the hateful eight. If
nothing else, Samuel L. Jackson brings an undeniable presence to the role --
which is to be expected, because Samuel L. Jackson is, well, Samuel L. Jackson. But
whether it’s acting chops or the sheer level of sociopathy, it’s hard to
underestimate what the others bring to the proverbial table. John Ruth is otherwise known as “The Hangman”,
someone who delights in seeing his bounties dangle on a rope. He’s distrustful, he’s brash, he’s got no
problems being antagonistic, and, notably, he treats Daisy like a punching
bag. That’s not exaggeration, either. She’s got a nasty-looking black eye
throughout the movie, and early on Ruth elbows her hard enough to make blood
spew from her nose. Later on he throws
hot stew in her face, and later still he mounts her and punches her hard enough
to knock out almost a whole row of teeth.
That’s all ignoring the fact that he keeps Daisy chained up to his wrist
throughout the majority of the movie; when the shackles actually come off, you
can see how bloody her arm has gotten in her travels.
No one can say The
Hateful Eight doesn’t earn its moniker.
Tensions flare and pressure builds as these people are forced into close
contact with one another -- people with different backgrounds, experiences, and
allegiances in a time period that’s already pretty volatile. Much like Django
Unchained (if not more so), the movie asks its audience to stare
uncomfortable topics like racism in the face, with a heaping helping of
violence on the side. Arguably, it’s
also a movie about misogyny, classism, and -- oddly enough -- vigilante
justice.
How does the saying go? A good villain is convinced that he’s doing
the right thing -- or something to that effect.
Do any of the characters in this movie think that they’re going the
right thing? It’s hard to say for
sure. Then again, maybe “the right
thing” is only a formality in the movie’s context; in the wake of hard times
and an uncertain future, these people are doing what they can to get by. To survive.
Well, granted the amount they need to do to “get by” is debatable;
taking Daisy in nets Ruth $10K, but given his reputation as The Hangman and how
far money might have gone back in those days, I wonder how much he needs to
live comfortably.
The important thing is that these people are doing
what they think they need to do, be it for their basic needs or a sense of
satisfaction. Taken in that light, these
guys aren’t absolute monsters just for kicks.
They have reasons and motivations for becoming so hateful -- through
lines that, heinous as they might be, you can’t help but want to follow. Those reasons help guide them, and, however
slightly, make them more than just agents of depravity. Put simply?
These guys may not like each other, but they can sure as hell respect
each other.
Warren and Ruth aren’t exactly buddy-buddy at any
point in the movie, but over time it becomes less of an issue of “I’m black and
you’re white, GRRRR!” and more “I’ll lie to get what I want, so surprise! You never should’ve trusted me!” No, really.
When Mannix exposes the Major’s lie -- by virtue of its circumstances
being too impossible to believe -- Ruth seems genuinely shocked that his
traveling buddy could do something so dirty.
Incidentally, it’s mere minutes later that Warren
decides to have a heart-to-heart with the old general Smithers, and even if it
leads to the latter’s death, you still get a sense that it’s possible for these
people to connect. They didn’t have to be hateful, which is a sentiment that
shines strongest in the movie’s final minutes.
But they are hateful, and it’s
just something the audience has to deal with.
The question is, should they deal with it? And
my personal answer is…yeah, they should.
Like I said at the start, The Hateful Eight is not for the faint of heart -- which is
probably to be expected from a Tarantino film.
It’s true that, like Django
Unchained before it, there’s both a lot of conversation and an emphasis on
that talking. Given the time period,
it’s not as if they could have staged a minutes-long dust-up -- even though Django kind of already did, but
whatever. The important thing is that
the movie makes some pretty steep demands of its audience in terms of its
content and the level of investment they’re supposed to hand over.
Off the top of my head, The Hateful Eight expects you to sit through things like
--the sudden murder of innocent shopkeepers
--the sudden murder of innocent assistants,
especially when they’re begging for mercy
--racist undertones
--heads getting blown apart
--more heads getting blown apart
--racist overtones
--full frontal nudity
--violent stabbing
--poison that makes people puke blood
--bloody projectile vomit that in one instance
actually gets blasted directly in someone’s face
--casual segregation
--torture
--Channing Tatum
I’ve got nothing against Channing Tatum. I just needed something funny to end on.
Is there something exploitative about all the
violence and depravity put on-screen? I
mean, Django was the Tarantino movie
that came before this one, right? So
isn’t it treading familiar ground? Has
the famous director settled into a rut that he can’t escape from? Well, not really. It’s close to the same setting, but there are
key differences that keep things from being a rehash. Oh, but it IS exploitative, right? Tarantino thinks that people LIVE for all
that gore and sin, so he’s just giving the people what they want…and THAT’s the
rut he’s settled into, isn’t it?
Well…not really.
I mean, I can kind of see why people would have problems with this movie
and Tarantino’s works at large. But even
though I’m a delicate little daffodil, it never felt as if there was anything
in the movie that bothered or offended me.
There was stuff in there that made me recoil so badly that I fused with
my seat in the theater, but it’s ultimately just a movie -- and given the
screen time offered, it leans more toward conversation than violence.
Opinions may vary, of course, but I don’t feel
like the movie’s being manipulative.
It’s just telling the story of a bunch of scumbags. It’s about men (and one woman) who’ll lie,
cheat, steal, and kill to get what they want, but they’re not savages; they
have their humanity, their honor, their pride, and yes, even their bonds. Mannix suspects the ugliest of the bunch of
being a traitor, but at the outset he says that he’s en route to visit his sick
mother. That could’ve easily been a lie,
but on the other hand? What does it say
about his character when that’s his
go-to lie?
This movie has a purpose -- and part of that
purpose is to present a mystery. And on
that note, I have to ask: remember that game 999?
For those unaware, 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors is a visual novel that
came out in 2010 for the original DS.
The premise is exactly what it sounds like: nine people wake up one
night on a massive cruise ship, and have to take part in the “Nonary Game” --
i.e. a bunch of math-themed puzzles -- to try and escape. If they don’t play by the rules, the bombs in
their stomachs will blow them up from the inside out, as one of the contestants
discovers firsthand. Similarly, they
have nine hours to make it to the end of the Nonary Game, or else the ship will
sink to the bottom of the ocean with them inside it. So it’s a race against time to find a way
out, as well as figure out who set up the game in the first place.
The trick to 999,
plot-wise (because the “final boss” of that game is, no joke, a Sudoku puzzle
you solve upside-down) is that even though you’re given the basic information
needed to progress through the story, certain elements are kept a secret. The guy who gets blown up by breaking the
rules is more than he appears to be, i.e. he was in on the Nonary Game as
something of an overseer, and forced to take part for the mastermind’s revenge
(or something like it). The main
takeaway, which the characters find out as the story progresses, is that even
though the entire game revolves around the number nine, there are more than nine people on the ship. So while the clues are there to figure out
the truth -- by using the very concept of save scumming
in a way most would have never thought possible -- the takeaway is that the
game keeps its cards close to the chest to set up a bunch of twists.
So basically, the game lies to you just by having
a title.
Wait, why does that sound familiar?
I’ll spoil a lot in my posts, but I won’t spoil
every last detail of The Hateful Eight
-- that reason being that you should see and judge it for yourself (because
it’s not like this is a review or anything).
But I will say that there are some secrets and surprises being kept by
the movie itself, not just its core characters.
Some of that stuff will really throw you for a loop, especially if you
get sucked into the movie’s rhythm and stop actively looking for the
culprit. There are a couple of sequences
throughout where the format and chronology changes, and completely turns the
story around -- unexpected stuff, and almost jarringly so, but it ultimately
works.
If we’re being totally honest here, though? I have to admit, I didn’t really need a
mystery to follow. I appreciate that it
manages to remind me of and/or borrow beats from 999 (because that’s a good thing to do, without question), but I’m
a little torn. Like I said, the movie
had me sold on the strength and synergy of its characters, even if they’re
technically horrible people. In an
alternate universe, the movie would toss them all into that store and let them
hash out their differences, and come to blows without the threat of a traitor
in the midst. I’d be okay with that --
and perhaps in that alternate universe, I’d have dreadlocks. But since this is the movie that we got in
our universe, it’s hard to complain.
Now excuse me while I start to complain.
It’s worth noting that this movie is a little over
three hours long. It sure doesn’t feel
like it once things get moving, but that’s the thing: it does take time to get moving.
It’s a real slow starter, which is to be expected when you’ve got to
establish more than a half-dozen characters, the setting, and the plot -- and
true to Tarantino’s style, there are some lengthy
conversations. I know it’s been a good
while since the days of Kill Bill
(itself no stranger to people talking it out, IIRC), but if you’re expecting
stylish, wall-to-wall violence, this isn’t the movie for you. The violence isn’t even all that stylish;
it’s direct and practical, as you’d expect when killing someone is as easy as
aiming at them and moving your finger a little bit.
As a final point -- not really a complaint, but an
observation -- there’s a part of me that thinks it’d be apt to call The Hateful Eight a comedy. It’s no Guardians
of the Galaxy, for sure, but a lot of lines and scenarios are geared toward
getting a laugh out of the audience.
Fine and dandy, but here’s the thing: given the circumstances and
subject matter, The Hateful Eight has
some seriously dark humor built into it.
I can see why people would take issue with Daisy’s abuse, because in any
other context it would be sickening; in this
context, the setup and timing of Ruth tossing a bowl of stew in her face is
supposed to be a joke. And…yeah, it IS a
joke. It’s cringe-inducing for sure, but
it’s so masterfully done that you can’t help but react to it -- even if that
reaction involves a couple of laughs. I
guess this is black comedy taken to its extreme. Or close enough to it.
Daisy getting beat down isn’t the only source of
humor in the movie, thankfully; as expected, the racial tensions lead to a lot
of slurs and insults. It doesn’t veer
into the realm of offensiveness, because A) those jokes aren’t directed at
people in the real world, and B) the jokes are made in the context of the movie
and the times. But in my
experience? It led to situations where
the people sitting to my immediate right laughed the hardest whenever someone
made a racist joke. I chose to leave
that hornet’s nest alone back then, and I’m continuing to do so now.
Also, this is the second straight instance where
the people on my right offered up a meaningful anecdote. Is this going to become a trend?
I wouldn’t mind that, in all honesty. And I don’t mind The Hateful Eight, either. I
like it a lot, and even if I saw it quite literally at the start of 2016, it’s
a movie that’ll leave a strong impression throughout the year. Tarantino and his crew knew what they were
doing, and created a movie that, while shocking, doesn’t just exist for shock
value. It’s a story above all else, with
the power to affect people and appeal to the worst (or perhaps best) of
them. Without question, it has a right
to exist -- because even if the key players are a bunch of scumbags, it’s still
plenty entertaining. And that’s why I’m
putting it somewhere around HERE on my SmartChart™:
There you go.
Judge the movie on your own terms if you’re up for it. That’s what Tarantino himself would likely
want, and that’s what I’d recommend as well.
Not that I’m his servant or anything.
Although, I can’t help but wonder: does liking The Hateful Eight as much as I did mean that I’m actually a much
worse person than I claim to be?
Nah, that’s impossible. My penchant for dishing out unpopular
opinions has already made me THE ENEMY
OF MANKIND. You can’t turn heel if
you’re already a heel.
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