If you go on Amazon this week and look at recent releases in movies, you'll surely see Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" sitting there somewhere near the top. Something else you might notice is that almost a quarter of the reviews are one star. In fact, less than half of the people who reviewed it gave it the full five stars. You might be asking yourself how one of the most esteemed movie directors of the past 20 years has taken such a loss. Let's look a little deeper and more objectively than some Amazon reviews.
Since 2003, Marvel has released somewhere around 30 films based on their comic franchises. Two separate versions of Spiderman and Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, X-Men, Daredevil, Hulk, Avengers ... the list goes on. Most of these were either huge box office hits or so bad that society as a whole tried to forget them (looking at you "Ghost Rider"). Looking back in recent years, starting with "Iron Man," and analyzing the plots of the "good" Marvel franchise, you might notice something interesting: they're all the same. Huge special effects budgets, compelling acting, and terrific scores don't cover up the fact that every one of these movies has an entirely similar and predictable plot line. Yet, these movies have become household names, grossing millions upon millions of dollars because people are more than willing to fork over their money to watch stuff explode for two hours at a time. This plays into something I like to call market saturation, and there are plenty of examples including franchises like GI Joe and Transformers. These movies aren't good, they're just well made — and most people know they aren't good, but we'll still go see them. The market is saturated with bad action movies that we think are good because they make our heart race.
"Hateful Eight" is not this kind of movie. It's slow and long, just under three hours. The humor is subtle and smart, and the characters are absolutely despicable. It's unconventional and typical audiences ready to see another Christmas themed western action movie are going to be taken aback by the slow, compelling conversation and intermittent violence. Many reviews berate "Hateful Eight" for being gory and violent, for good reason, but I guarantee the body count in this film is significantly less than anything you might see in an Avengers movie. While not on screen, that violence is still implied; "Hateful Eight" simply puts it right in your face, and when it's not its characters are busy conversing and trying to figure out the movie's plot themselves. Modern audiences aren't used to thinking and listening. We'd much rather see people get shot and explode, which is baffling to think about because the worst reviews for "Hateful Eight" always call it boring and violent. It makes me, a fan of this film, want to scream "What do you want? Is your bloodlust not satisfied?" You may be thinking that there are other reasons that this film is boring. That maybe the plot isn't compelling or suspenseful or predictable. You're wrong, and let me tell you why.
Tarantino's films, like "Pulp Fiction" and "Hateful Eight," follow an unconventional act structure. Not to throw any spoilers out there, but Tarantino cheated. There's no possible way to guess whodunit because Tarantino holds the information you need to know until the intro to the third act where he cuts back in time to explain how certain members of the house got to be where they are now. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for this big reveal and when it came I wasn't disappointed. I didn't feel like Tarantino cheated because if he hadn't this film would have been boring. There would have been no point for it to exist. It's this unconventional storytelling that makes a Tarantino film what it is, and people hate it! They feel cheated because they want to be smarter than the film. Because of the market saturation of terrible plots and guessable endings, we've become used to knowing exactly what's going to happen next, and when we can't the film becomes very uncomfortable. "Hateful Eight" is uncomfortable, claustrophobic, despicable, and compelling. I've never felt quite as immersed in a world as I did watching this in theaters. Now this movie isn't for everyone, and I won't touch on some of the issues of "racism" mentioned in the reviews I've read, but I will say something tells me that Samuel L. Jackson wouldn't work with a racist.
If what you've read here sounds interesting then I implore you to watch Hateful Eight when it comes out on March 15th. I firmly believe that the reasons today's audiences don't like it could create an interesting study on the film industry and viewer base of motion pictures as a whole.
