Even though Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful 8”, which airs tonight on free TV, did not win the praise of a “Django Unchained”, the overlong chamber play is a true gift for every Western fan.
While “Django Unchained” still looked at the Western genre with a very postmodern view and thought from punchline to punchline, “The Hateful 8” comes across as far more decelerated and – in the best sense – more challenging. Quentin Tarantino’s fabulous snow western can be seen today, 31 December at 10 p.m. on Nitro – at this time completely unabridged.
If the broadcast time is too late for you in view of the almost three-hour running time or if you would like to enjoy the film without commercial breaks, you can order the DVD and Blu-ray, for example, from online retailers such as Amazon:
THIS IS WHAT “THE HATEFUL 8”
IS ABOUT.
Somewhere in snowy Wyoming, a few years after the end of the Civil War: a stagecoach makes its way to the small town of Red Rock. On board are the grim bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell), his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and two men who have joined them on the way: the ex-soldier Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who is supposedly the sheriff of Red Rock.
However, due to a violent snowstorm, the group is forced to seek refuge in a lonely cabin. There, Bob (Demian Bichir), also called “Marc the Mexican”, the obscure Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the cowboy Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) and the old Southern general Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern) are already hiding from the weather. Tensions quickly rise in the group – and soon they all have to fear for their lives…
EXTRAORDINARY AND UNCOMPROMISING
I’m sure everyone who saw “Inglorious Basterds” remembers the opening very well, in which Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) stalks a French dairy farmer to find out if he’s hiding Jews in his house. “The Hateful 8” can be compared with this grandiose scene – only stretched out to a running time of almost three hours.
The focus here – as in every Quentin Tarantino film – is on the dialogue. But never before has the cult director with the distinctive chin part celebrated dialogue sequences as expansively as he does in “The Hateful 8” – until it finally comes to the obligatory eruptions of violence that turn the finale into a real bloodbath, as we are used to from Tarantino.
In the official FILMSTARTS review, which crowns “The Hateful 8” with 4 out of 5 stars, author Björn Becher comes to the following conclusion: “With this western consisting of two very different halves, Quentin Tarantino once again proves why he is one of the most extraordinary and uncompromising filmmakers of our time – although he doesn’t make it entirely easy for his audience. “
Yes, you have to be patient to fully appreciate the class of “The Hateful 8”, but the magnificent images by cinematographer Robert Richardson and the score by THE Western composer legend par excellence, Ennio Morricone, alone will make Western lovers’ hearts beat faster. But “The Hateful 8” is exciting above all because a development of Tarantino’s is made very clear here.
“The Hateful 8 is the most political film to date by a director whose opponents like to accuse him of only being interested in his cinematic worlds and playing down real problems,” says the review. Never before has Tarantino dealt in such a mature and differentiated way with unequal power relations between the sexes, violence by authorities and the oppression of minorities – and all this against a seething post-Civil War backdrop.
The Hateful 8″ tightens the tension when the whodunit plot becomes increasingly dense and not only one of the best flashbacks ever is built in, but also the extreme brutality is unleashed relentlessly. Here the cast also shows itself in absolute top form, which in the course of the juicy excesses of violence once again underlines that
