Friday 15 January 2016

THE HATEFUL EIGHT (A): When Tarantino tries to please Tarantino! [3/5]

With THE HATEFUL EIGHT, Quentin Tarantino revisits (again) the 70s era of classic spaghetti westerns where the production company logos and the title-designing go retro with those bright, bold and yellow western fonts on a panoramic, scenic and slow long-shot of a barren territory (in this case, a snowy landscape). Bracing and brisk? Absolutely, but not for long! The real trial of your serenity starts when the characters get introduced calculatingly in the most similar manner where the words are set loose to roam free and the actions hardly try to set the tone any warmer. Hang around, isn’t it the pattern Tarantino is loved all over for? Couldn’t agree more; THE HATEFUL EIGHT pays not only a homage to the yesteryear’s gratifyingly grand movie-making techniques but also to the ‘Tarantino’ style cinema. Only thing funny is that the payee here is none other than the master himself.

A bounty murderer Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is being transported to the town Red Rock, handcuffed with her hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) in a stagecoach. Soon they are stopped and accompanied by another bounty hunter Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson) and Chris Mannix (Walter Giggins), supposedly a ‘yet to be badged’  new sheriff of the town. After roaming around an hour or so of screen-time in a snowstorm-prone province, THE HATEFUL EIGHT settles in a small shelter where the previous four meets another four; Oswaldo (Tim Roth), Joe (Michael Madsen), Bob (Demian Bichir) and Smithers (Bruce Dern). As the conversation gets deeper and the dialogues a lot edgier revealing the darker sides of each one under the roof, the action initiates to take over the stage with bullets being fired to pierce and explode various body parts without showing any discrimination of any kind. A typical Tarantino you’ve been waiting and dying for the whole first half!

The snow-clad geographical-spread was, at any given day, a perfect canvas for Tarantino to paint it bloody red in all the panoramic wide shots likewise the Coen Brothers excelled in FARGO but the Tarantino of RESERVOIR DOGS tows away the plot to stay put in the restricted and walled barn- a quite suffocating stricture for Robert Richardson (the cinematographer) to play around. The first half though scenic and scintillating in the opening sequence impressively blessed with the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, sucks most of your survival force with the all dead, wordy expressions. And then it tries to compensate it in a ‘been there-seen that’ scenario where the blood spatters easily manage to please the desperate genre-aficionado in you. In this very half, you will never feel for the lack of words, I guarantee you.

Samuel L Jackson being a regular in a Tarantino film looks comfortably positioned. With a coarse and wavy accent and a lot stronger character manipulative of racial intolerance in his own favor, he leads the cast. Kurt Russell with his one-liners impresses. Jennifer Jason Leigh as the smirking, gruesome and blood-licking bounty proves to be a worthy nomination for Oscars this year. If rumors are to be believed, Tim Roth has been roped in for the role meant for Christoph Waltz, another Tarantino regular. He makes it his own; no doubt on his caliber but still, you could find a glance and glimpse of Waltz easily there within the character.

Overall; despite being gifted with some exceptionally good performances, a soul-pleasing opening sequence, a few lyrical blood-shots and even more engaging and tempting soundtrack; THE HATEFUL EIGHT remains an unfulfilling, desperate and standard Tarantino film. Now, I am ready to take the shots! [3/5] 

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