Set in in the Wyoming wilderness not long after the Civil War, the film opens on a stagecoach racing across a snow-shrouded trail amidst a brooding opening theme by legendary composer Ennio Morricone. It's not long before the coach comes across stranded bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson), asking for a lift into the town of Red Rock, as a blizzard is fast-approaching. The driver tells Warren he'll need to ask the passenger in back for permission, as the man has paid for a private ride into town.
That passenger is fellow bounty hunter John "The Hangman" Ruth (Kurt Russell, doing his best John Wayne) and his prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). After verifying Warren's identity and making sure the former Union officer has no interest in the $10,000 price on Domergue's head (Warren has three of his own dead bodies to cash in on), Ruth allows the man to board and the three roar off toward a nearby way station known as Minnie's Haberdashery.
Shortly thereafter, another man, one Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), is trailside asking for a ride. Mannix, a loose interpretation of a Southern gentlemen if there ever was one, claims to be the new sheriff of Red Rock and tells Ruth if he wants to get paid for Domergue, he'd better extend him a ride. After some "colorful" dialog insues, Ruth again agrees.
The four barely make it to Minnie's before the brunt of the storm hits and there they are met by four more "stranded" individuals: hangman Oswaldo Mosbray (Tim Roth), cowpuncher Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), former Confederate army general Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) and storekeeper Bob (Demian Bichir). Of course it's not long before suspicion takes over and all hell breaks loose.
Every character in The Hateful Eight is memorable and each actor seems to to be having the time of their lives spouting that one-of-a-kind Tarantino verbiage, especially Jackson and Goggins. They really are the two linchpins of the film, sworn enemies at first, but strangely closer by journey's end.
As if the dialog and characters weren't enough of a draw, this time around Tarantino has chosen to shoot his film in the long-dormant, super-wide Ultra Panavision 70 format and release it as a throwback Cinerama roadshow presentation in select cities. I was fortunate enough to screen the film this way and while it was nice to have an overture, intermission and souvenir program, 70mm road shows just don't work in small, run-of-the-mill multiplex theaters, where The Hateful Eight has been relegated since every large, premier screen in the country is committed to Star Wars for the next month.
70mm aside, The Hateful Eight doesn't exactly break any new ground in the Tarantino canon, but it does extend an extremely talented filmmaker's incredible eight-film run of giving audiences exactly what they want: indelible entertainment. Grade: B+
Dec. 31: Top 5 Films of 2015
