Bek: So, I feel with Tarantino movies, he’s got so good at the formula that it’s sometimes hard to understand whether you’re actually watching a good movie. But there were – for me at least – no reservations here. It just felt like a really great film. What did you think?

Jack: Yeah, the ‘style over substance’ complaint often gets levelled at Tarantino (I felt that way myself when I first watched Pulp Fiction) but I don’t think that’s a fair criticism here. It’s still a Tarantino movie, in that it’s still doing the genre homage/pastiche thing he’s been refining his whole career, but this film is also his most philosophical. I think to a certain degree that stems from The Hateful Eight’s primary inspiration, which is Sergio Leone’s ‘Dollars Trilogy’. He borrows superficial elements from those movies (barren landscape shots; Ennio Morricone score; the occasional Mexican standoff), but he also shares Leone’s interest in American values, and questioning them against the backdrop of the Civil War. But to a much greater extent than Leone, Tarantino is interested in race, and that provides the focus for this movie.

Bek: There is a lot of racial stuff, and I think that he addresses it in a much more sophisticated way than he has done in previous films, which were essentially about the same issues. There’s a lot of distrust, and the violence, when it happens, is volcanic. Characters who are dangerous deliver on their threats.

Jack: Yeah, and you kind of see where the characters are going to end up projected from their first appearance – like Kurt Russell’s character, who fits that classic Tarantino archetype of being super paranoid, but also kind of inept.

Bek: Speaking of which, what did you think of the performances in the film?

Jack: They’re all pretty capable. Tim Roth was a bit disappointing with the really exaggerated English accents. Samuel L. Jackson is great as Marquis Warren. There’s an early scene where he’s told to put handcuffs on as a precaution – it’s an incredibly loaded moment, and he plays it beautifully.

Bek: I also want to highlight Jennifer Jason Leigh. She’s in chains throughout most of the movie, but I always got the feeling she’s treating the situation like a big joke.

Jack: Definitely. And that tension pretty much drives the whole film – it’s like a feature-length version of the bar scene in Inglorious Basterds, where it’s just a question of when that simmering tension is going to explode into violence.

Bek: I agree. And in this film, unlike early Tarantino, the violence really serves a purpose. It says a lot about his worldview that characters who behave in ways most consistent with their principles, and who follow their moral code, are the ones who end up doing the most twisted stuff.

Bek 5/5

Jack 5/5