Although it draws its atmosphere from the misanthropic classic spaghetti western ‘The Great Silence’, and the plot is best described as a hybrid of an Agatha Christie story and an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, ‘The Hateful Eight’ is a film in which Tarantino refers the least to his favorite classics, and he has minimized his favorite fetishes as well.
Critics have, absolutely unjustly, rated it the weakest of all Tarantino’s films in his career. Viewers in the Balkans will certainly be able to draw many parallels with the characters that inhabit this cruel, darkly humorous world of blood, lies, and myths.
If you are in the cinema just for entertainment, you can enjoy the film purely as a craftily impressive blend of western and thriller. Samuel L. Jackson has delivered the best performance of his career after ‘Pulp Fiction’, Jennifer Jason Leigh has delivered her best, and Ennio Morricone’s music is magnificent.
