As with many Quentin Tarantino films, a mixture of gore and comedy make up this feature The Hateful Eight. There is no good versus evil in this Western whodunit type film; each character is despicable in their own way, some more than others.

Set a few years after the Civil War, a stagecoach hurtles through the wintry landscape of Wyoming. The passengers inside are bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and fugitive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason-Leigh). Ruth known as “The Hangman” is heading to Red Rock to bring Daisy to justice and collect his reward money. They come across two strangers who really aren’t strangers at all; Major Marquis Warren (Samuel Jackson), an ex-Union soldier who is now also an infamous bounty hunter and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), a southern renegade who claims to be the new Sheriff of Red Rock (once he gets there and is sworn in). From the beginning you become weary of each sketchy looking character and are almost waiting for something to happen.

With the blizzard gaining traction on them they stop at Minnie’s Haberdashery to wait it out. It is here the movie goes from the wide expansion of the great outdoors to the one room where the rest of the movie is set. There the proprietor Minnie is gone and they are instead greeted by four unfamiliar faces; Bob (Demián Bichir), a Mexican who contends that the Haberdashery was left in his charge while Minnie is away, Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), a Confederate and of course racist general, Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) who says he is the hang man of Red Rock, and John Gage (Michael Madsen) a cowboy “trying to get home to see his mother”. With the help of intelligent Major Warren, it becomes clear one, two or maybe everyone in the room isn’t who they claim to be and everyone isn’t going to make it to Red Rock.

As usual Tarantino is far from politically correct and many will have qualms over the use of the n-word, misogyny, a forceful homosexual act and violence inflicted upon Daisy by the men in the film.

At 187 minutes, told in 5 chapters and an intermission, it might seem like a bit much but it’s worth the ride with twists, turns, heavy blood splatter and piled up bodies that you would expect in a Tarantino classic.

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