Tarantino's Latest Film is Sick, Demented, Fun. (If you're up for it.)

The very mention of Quentin Tarantino’s name is loaded with associations and expectations. For some, Tarantino is a cinematic god. For others, he’s an irritant. Like J.J. Abrams, Tarantino is a nostalgia pirate, making movies that riff on specific films and genres he loves. But Tarantino is a better filmmaker, and even a “lesser” entry like The Hateful Eight is something to behold. There’s so much pressure to be a masterpiece, that it’s hardly fair to hold The Hateful Eight up to such an impossible standard. If you like the style of Quentin Tarantino, you’re likely to enjoy his latest joint; if you find his work maddening, steer clear.

The Hateful Eight may be the sickest Quentin Tarantino movie yet. Or, maybe I’ve just forgotten how sick all the previous films were. Eight is sort of a combination Western and Agatha Christie yarn, set on a blizzardy night in the Wyoming wilderness in a rickety old haberdashery, where a group of strangers is snowed in. Among them is John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter nicknamed “The Hangman,” who’s escorting a salty murderess named Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the small town of Red Rock, where she’ll be hanged for her crimes. Russell is a pop culture legend, having created some of the best tough guys in action movies of the last thirty-ish years. As John Ruth, with his face hidden behind an unkempt wilderness of hair, he’s gruff and withered, but still tough as nails and still utterly likable, even when he elbows poor Daisy in the face (on multiple occasions).

Leigh’s performance as Daisy is probably the best in the film and the least show-offy. She’s like an older, weather-worn version of Ally Sheedy’s character in The Breakfast Club: she’s a quiet flake who can take just about anything that’s given her, and she’s constantly winking when her aggressors aren’t looking.

Daisy and John Ruth are on a private stagecoach when they’re stopped by Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Mark Warren, another bounty hunter. Warren fought for the Yankees in the Civil War, and he’s a controversial figure, having deliberately killed white soldiers on both sides of the fight. Unlike John Ruth, who always sees his captive criminals are given proper hanging justice, Warren has no scruples about collecting his bounty with a corpse. When we meet Warren, he’s sitting atop a pile of frozen dead swindlers, waiting for a ride into town.

Samuel L. Jackson exhibits such exuberant brio in his performances that he may be impossible to dislike. His acting in The Hateful Eight isn’t particularly different from his acting in Chi-Raq, or any number of other movies (including my personal favorite Tarantino film, Jackie Brown). But like many of the great stars, it’s Jackson’s personality that we love. The way he talks directly to us (even when he isn’t), the way his grandstanding and speechifying commands our attention and tickles us, is some kind of pure Hollywood pleasure. Jackson here does not disappoint, and even when he’s on the brink of physical agony, he's delightful.

Hateful Eight may be Tarantino’s nastiest effort. As the title suggests, nobody in this film is lovable. (It looks as grim as Robert Altman's wintry Western McCabe and Mrs. Miller, only the nastiness is canned, far less authentic.) Many of the characters have charming attributes, but those attributes are really the personalities of the actors coming through: Jackson’s smart-ass-cinematic-emcee quality, Russell’s charming-tough-guy, the way Jennifer Jason Leigh uses her eyes as obscene gestures directed at anyone and everyone. Tarantino newcomer Walton Goggins may have the most genuinely good character to play: his name is Chris Mannix, and he’s allegedy the new sheriff of Red Rock, stranded in the snow and awaiting rescue when John Ruth’s lucky stagecoach happens by and whisks him away. Mannix brims with foolhardy machismo, and it’s utterly charming: First you can’t help but feel sorry for him because you know he doesn’t know whom he’s dealing with; later you feel sorry for him because you actually like him; and by the end you may feel something like affection for him.

Tarantino doesn’t skimp on the gab in Hateful Eight, either. At times, the talking lulled me into almost-stupefaction. But the movie is just interesting enough in those moments to work. And it builds to a satisfying—if deeply troubling and disturbing and gory—finish that will not disappoint fans. Hateful Eight may be the least urgent of Tarantino’s later films, but it’s a terrific entertainment, and it’s beautifully shot (by Robert Richardson) and scored (by Ennio Morricone). And that cast is hard to beat.

With Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, James Parks, Demian Bichir, Bruce Dern, and Channing Tatum. Written by Tarantino.

Django Unchained

There's something unsettling about Quentin Tarantino's project of providing wish fulfillment revenge fantasies, first to the Jewish people in Inglourious Basterds, then to the American slaves, in Django Unchained. Watching one of Tarantino's films almost always gives me the impression that this director is full of himself, because his movies are so audacious. But it's hard to be too concerned with these thoughts, because Tarantino's movies are generally so much fun to watch. (Jackie Brown remains my favorite.)

The plot of Django Unchained is this: a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz, played by Christopher Waltz (who was so deliciously evil in Inglourious Basterds that you can't help but wonder if he's going to turn bad in this one too) enlists the help of a slave named Django (silent 'D'), played by Jamie Foxx, to find three white men who are wanted for murder. Dr. Schultz works for the government, and is legally permitted to kill any of his targets as long as he produces their bodies. Django worked on a plantation under these men, who once beat his wife ferociously after she and Django tried to escape. Eventually Dr. Schultz and Django form a partnership, after Schultz gives Django his freedom, and they decide to rescue Django's wife, now working a plantation in Mississippi.

This plantation in Mississippi is run by Calvin Candie, and it's called Candieland. The name itself suggests the genteel, gruesome horrors of slavery. When we finally get to Candieland, where we know the film will play itself out in full faux-Shakespearean fashion (Tarantino is maybe the comic book Shakespeare of our time), it's the most terrifying visual in the movie: the cotton jutting out of the fields like white dollops of foam; the slaves working in the punishing Mississippi sun; and Leonardo DiCaprio, never more villainous and enjoyable in his entire career, as Calvin, the Southern gentleman with a murderous temper, who gets his kicks watching black men fight each other to the death.

Django Unchained is the most suggestively violent of the Tarantino movies. The director holds back here more than usual, presumably to demonstrate a little good taste. He's already walking on egg shells by making a movie that tries to retroactively punish white racism, and if you can allow yourself to enjoy its maniacal plot, you're likely to have a good time. The camera, more often than not, looks away from the violent acts, or at least, the most violent parts of them. The suggestion is powerful enough. There's the expected bloodbath, near the end. That's the cookie, the reward for the initiated, who perhaps sit through Tarantino's talky, long-winded plots just for those ten minutes of gory violence. But as much as I was filled with anticipation and suspense for that scene to come, the rest of the movie is what's more enjoyable (although the long-windedness takes a toll: they could have shortened it a bit, I think.)

The performances in Django Unchained are the film's strongest assets: Jamie Foxx turns into some kind of 1850's blaxplitation superhero. His performance is smooth and assured, and his indignation both righteous and horrific. Waltz is a charming participant, perhaps incredulously caught up in the story, but like any good bad movie, necessarily out of place. He's a wonderfully engaging actor, and all the scenes where he talks his way out of being shot by various farmowners and sheriffs and villains, are deliriously funny and amusing. DiCaprio is wickedly good, playing a part that's truly distinguishable from so many of the banal-important roles he's played before. He's colorful, capturing that weird mixture of Southern gentleman-Gothic torturer.

The South, like every other place figured into a Quentin Tarantino film, becomes the director's playground, where he employs any and every ingredient that interests him. Thus we get a movie set in pre-Civil War America full of 20th century Westerny songs as background music (and a few rap songs, too). The anachronism works well for this kind of pop-history-carnival ride. It's not a perfect film, and it's not the director's best film, but it's a fun movie, and I'm always grateful when movies aren't afraid of showing us a good time.

With Kerry Washington (as Broomhilda--Tarantino must have been waiting 20 years to use that name), Samuel L. Jackson (perhaps the most hated character in the movie, as the self-loathing head-slave, and Mr. Candie's right-hand-yes-man), Walton Goggins, Don Johnson, Laura Cayouette, Dennis Christopher, James Russo, James Remar, Tom Wopat, Cooper Huckabee, M.C. Gainey, Bruce Dern, Ned Bellamy, Jonah Hill (who has a cameo in one of the funniest scenes: a pre-KKK nighttime attack that isn't very well-thought-out by the participants), Tom Savini, Robert Carradine, Michael Parks, and Quentin Tarantino. Written by the director. 165 min. ★★★½