The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight

2 out of 10

With a broken narrative, atrocious pacing, and uninteresting characters, Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight is baffling in its ineptitude. Falsely marketed as a mystery, The Hateful Eight is, in fact, just a whole lot of talking done by nine people snowed into a cabin. Yes, you read correctly. There are nine people in the cabin leaving the viewer to wonder who didn't count as part of the "Hateful Eight." If anyone could make a dialogue driven mystery work, it would Tarantino... Well, I guess not. It's tone is beyond inconsistent, leaving me confused and causing me to cringe more often than I think I was supposed to. Unlike the rest of Tarantino's work, by the time the over the top violence begins, the lack of a strong narrative foundation makes the gore feel gratuitous and the film, as a whole, feel unnecessary. Were it not for Jennifer Jason Leigh's stellar performance as the despicable Daisy Domergue, I would have left the 3 hour train wreck of a movie even more incensed, an outcome I can scarcely imagine.