It's an hour too long
The actors are all game, and really bring it, even Channing Tatum. But Walton Goggins and Sam Jackson rise above the rest and are really special. Jackson's not as amazing as he was in Django, which might be his best work as an actor, but he's still wonderful. Even when Tarantino has him delivering one of the stupidest monologues I've ever heard to Bruce Dern, Jackson still sells it so much that it almost works. Walton Goggins perfectly balances, throughout the whole piece, a wild intensity and an endearing goofiness. He's always been a reliable character actor, but this is terrific work.
Tarantino's voice is really off putting. Having himself as the narrator, even for just like two sections of the movie really was jarring to the point of taking me out of the experience. I think it's also jarring and ruinous because he does not start out with narration nor finish with it. There's only a narration to add connecting pieces to certain parts of the movie. That's bad writing. That makes it feel out of place just in its existence. This is what people are talking about when they say that narration is lazy. I don't agree that narration is lazy in and of itself, but here it's just a way for QT to insert his presence into things even more, not because it works or because it's needed.
The opening couple of chapters feel like Tarantino has gone heavily back to the well of stealing from Elmore Leonard, this time from Leonard's amazing western stories he started out writing. These chapters are quieter, but talky, more engaging than what follows, riveting even. Shortening the second half of the movie might've allowed this early intrigue and impact to matter more in the end. It doesn't, and that's unfortunate. That opening passage of getting them to the cabin is absolutely expert writing, acting, and filmmaking. But it's all downhill from there.
The allegations of misogyny are really stupid. QT isn't the most "woke" of people in the world, but it's obvious that these characters are misogynists, not the movie itself.
It's obviously Tarantino's best looking and sounding movie. The photography is tremendous and although Ennio Morricone's score is under used, what's there is great. Impressive feeling movie up until the stage play of everything in the cabin.
Although it starts out feeling like maybe QT has finally grown up, once that first chapter inside the cabin is over, the movie goes sharply downhill into the usual violence and messiness as a storyteller that always gets QT in trouble in my book. Though I do like the contrast of starting out in the open nature (though nature is bearing down on them) but feeling very intimate and contained, to then actually opening up as they enter a confined space. It's an interesting story dynamic, but not one that really goes anywhere. It's one of those things that's more interesting to talk about than it is to view. Because when it becomes a stage play, it really loses a sense of itself as a filmic being. There are ways of making cinematic choices for stage play adaptations or making things flow better, but QT is pretty content to try and have his writing carry things. That's the wrong move. As he has become more QUENTIN TARANTINO and less Quentin Tarantino, his writing has suffered. He is now a much more talented visual filmmaker than he is a writer. I think his writing has become lazy and much less effective than it used to be. He's a better director than writer now, and that wasn't always the case.
I think that's all I've got for now. I would need to re-watch it to give a true proper write up, and honestly I don't think I will ever feel the need to watch this movie again. I will still go back and watch Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but those have become QT's only movies I have any passion for. They're his only movies that hold in my mind. Even Django, which I liked a good deal, doesn't pull me back to it. I don't think The Hateful Eight will either.
No comments:
Post a Comment