![]() ![]() ![]() For a man who has a real penchant for playing favourites, it was a pretty bold move. ![]() Tarantino took a risk with Django Unchained, casting leading men whom he’d never worked with before in Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio. The Hateful Eight also boasts Sam Jackson’s finest performance since Pulp Fiction, though his monologue about receiving fellatio from a Confederate soldier whom he left to freeze in the snow doesn't quite compare to Pulp Fiction's "inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men," let's be honest. In true Greek tragedy fashion, nobody does. The latter stages of the film are a beautiful, bloody mess with no indication of whose going to come out on top. The movie's final chapters gather pace at a breakneck speed and, as in all Tarantino films, once one gun is discharged they all start firing like all hell's broken loose. Hateful Eight is a movie with time to waste, in that sense, and Tarantino is willing to make the audience wait for him. No less than five minutes is spent devoted to Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character playing a folk-song on the guitar only for Kurt Russell’s gruff hangman to snatch the instrument from her and destroy it in a rage. One chapter even starts with a narrator (Tarantino himself) explaining a pivotal plot point that wasn’t shown on-screen in real time. The Hateful Eight, compared to the four Tarantino films the preceded it chronologically, is easily the heaviest on exposition. For such an opening to work, a movie requires eminently watchable actors and a captivating story-teller, and the team delivers in spades. The Hateful Eight opens with a steady stream of dialogue that lasts for 40 minutes, pretty much entirely set within the travelling carriage of John “The Hangman” Ruth (played by Kurt Russell). ![]() By no means is it a bad movie, its quirks homages just overpower the simple telling of a story in such a way that it will always be easier to curl up on the couch with Django Unchained, or Reservoir Dogs. There is indisputably more on offer in Kill Bill for film geeks than for the lay fan. It's easy to become a bit befuddled by a movie where the emotion is played with wet-eyed sincerity, but the punches and karate chops come with sound effects. The marriage of the very real relief The Bride feels finding the daughter she thought was lost, to the death-by-finger-touch violence that follows undeniably jars at least a little bit. The second volume is set at a slower pace and delves further into the backstory of The Bride, building a resonance in the audience that certainly enriches the movie to the point that it is an unmissable part of Tarantino's filmography. Of course, the intentionally unreal ultra-violence is no less entertaining and the silhouetted samurai sword-fight is one of the most visually tantalising scenes in modern cinema. While exquisitely choreographed, the martial arts magic realism is a bridge too far anyone who sets a tariff on just how much disbelief they are willing to suspend. She takes them all down in what is essentially a gorier take on the Power Rangers in a lengthy sequence that's both fun and frivolous all at once. A prime example is The Bride’s sword-fight sequence against the Crazy 88 Yakuza gang, 88 samurai-swordsmen, each one about as efficacious as a Stormtrooper. Kill Bill’s flaws were very intentionally built into its design, and form a big part of what make the movie so different from standard Western cinema. Kill Bill swapped out Tarantino’s signature gunplay for audible air-slicing martial arts and meticulously choreographed sword-fighting - though the sleek dialogue and badass characters remained abundant. ![]()
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