h8ful eight - my review

I've enjoyed every other Tarantino movie I've seen. And when I saw the trailer for H8ful Eight, and I read that it was almost three hours long, I was excited.

But man was I disappointed. It was not good. The dialogue was flat and uninspired, with exchanges like "You have a letter?" "Yes." "You really have a letter?" "Yes." "From the President?" "Yes." "You've got a letter from the President?" "Yes." A high school kid could have written better dialogue.

And then there is the matter of the over-the-top offensive scene. Tarantino often pushes the envelope, with the torture/rape scene in Pulp Fiction, the Jamie Foxx hanging upside down scene in Django, and the theory about Madonna's song "Like a Virgin" in Reservoir Dogs. But the scene in H8ful Eight was, in my opinion, too much. The sight of a man giving oral pleasure to Samuel Jackson, while he describes it in way too vivid detail, was not something I wanted in my brain.

I almost walked out, the movie was so bad. But I stayed to the end, hoping it would at least have a good ending that might redeem the two hours and 47 minutes I had just sat through. But the ending was horrible. I won't tell you what happened, because that would be three kinds of spoiler. But it wasn't good.

Save your money and see "Revenant" instead. That was an intense movie based on an amazing true story. Worth seeing on the big screen, too.