Hateful Eight - 1 smile

While I’m not a Quentin Tarantino fan, I did think that his Inglorious Basterds took an interesting look at an alternate way to end Nazi Germany. Did he have at least one scene where he goes too over-the-top? Yes, but in that movie he also paid close attention to story. With “The Hateful Eight,” he has too little story and too much excess. Set almost entirely in a snowed-in way station, the story’s so spare it doesn’t warrant its overly long running time of 2 hours and 47 minutes. Fortunately, Tarantino has a genius for casting. Kurt Russell has fun chewing on Tarantino’s florid dialogue as a grizzled bounty hunter, Jennifer Jason Leigh shines through a bloody smile as the outlaw he’s taking to the hangman (though she does get slapped and punched way too much for me) and Samuel L. Jackson is at his best as a surly ex-Union officer/bounty hunter. Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Walton Goggins and Demian Bichir round out the group. “The Hateful Eight” wears out its welcome well before the halfway point, leaving the equivalent of a whole other movie to suffer through.