The Hateful Eight: 8 Reasons It's Quentin Tarantino's Worst Film
8. It Offers Nothing Humane As An Antithesis To The Depravity
I argued briefly in my Tarantino ranking that the directors films, for all their nastiness, all their shocking violence and depravity, are, at heart, humane films - or at least there is something humane pulsing under the blood and guts and wantonness. Yes, QTs work is full of wicked characters and deplorable instances of degeneracy, but they are nearly always undercurrent with small, tender moments of warmth or pathos. Think Pulp Fiction, a film that contains male-on-male rape, the murder of some college kids and a heroin overdose played for laughs (kind of). But look at how Pulp Fiction tempers these moments with ones like the touching exchange between Vincent (John Travolta) and Mia (Uma Thurman) after her OD, where she softly tells him her joke and he returns her a blown kiss as she turns and walks away. Or the embrace between Butch (Bruce Willis) and Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) in the motel room, which contains the line its unfortunate what we find pleasing to touch and pleasing to the eye are seldom the same. Or the last stretch of Kill Bill Vol. 2. Or the Pam-Grier/Robert Forster romance in Jackie Brown. Not so in The Hateful Eight, where the only moment of affection - Daisys sweet little rendition of Jim Jones at Botany Bay - is smashed to bits, quite literally, when Kurt Russels John Ruth demolishes her guitar, putting an abrupt end to one of the films only moments of gentility.
