“The Hateful Eight” is the latest film from the director Quentin Tarantino, and arguably the most troubled and unique production he has made. The entire script for the film was originally leaked online, and Tarantino responded to the leak by cancelling the film and stating that he intended to turn the script into a novel. However, after months of silence, Tarantino announced that he was moving forward on making “The Hateful Eight.” The entirety of the movie was filmed on 70mm film, which is rarely used in modern filmmaking, and Tarantino set up a “70mm Roadshow” upon the film’s release, where he would go to various theaters and show “The Hateful Eight” on projectors specifically made for 70mm film.

The story is set in post-Civil War Wyoming, and follows John Ruth, a bounty hunter who is traveling through the mountains on his way to the nearest town to turn in a notorious outlaw he has captured. On the way, he meets a former Union Army major and a former Confederate soldier, and as tempers begin to flare in the group, a blizzard overtakes them, causing them to retreat to a nearby cabin, where another group of travelers is already staying. Ruth grows suspicious of the fact that he has run into so many people at the same time as he is bringing in an outlaw who has a bounty worth a large sum of money, and begins to suspect that someone in the cabin is trying to kill him and rescue the outlaw, which kicks off a journey to unravel the web of lies that has built up in the cabin before blood is shed.

The movie mainly fits the genre of a mystery, with the main center of the story the search to uncover who is trying to free the prisoner, but it barely even focuses on that, as the audience is given almost no clues and in the end the mystery is solved based entirely on clues the audience never saw. What is the point of a mystery movie if the audience is forced to wait for the solution to be spoonfed to them? It’s disappointing to watch the story falter, as there is so much potential in film’s premise. This could have been tense mystery with interesting characters, but instead it is a limp “whodunit” movie with shallow characters. Only a couple of characters have an actual developed personality and backstory, while the rest of the characters are shallow cliches, which is a huge issue in a movie that focuses mainly on the interaction between characters.

While the characters themselves are disappointing, the entire cast’s acting is great; it’s clear that everyone is giving it their all. Special mention goes to Samuel L. Jackson and Walton Goggins, as their performances carry the final third of the movie, seamlessly alternating between entertainingly over-the-top and subdued drama. It’s disappointing that the great cast of this movie is stuck playing such flat characters; the combination of a cast of well-written characters and a cast of great actors undoubtedly would have raised the quality of “The Hateful Eight” exponentially.

“The Hateful Eight” is a long film, with a runtime of 2 hours and 47 minutes. One of the film’s biggest flaws is that it is bloated, filled with unnecessary segments that add nothing to story. The opening of the film is a staggering 45 minutes, and most of that length is due to unnecessary lingering shots. At the very least half an hour could have been cut out of the movie without losing anything of value. Tarantino unintentionally sabotages the tense atmosphere he is trying to build throughout the movie by including so many scenes that slows the pacing of the story to a snail’s pace. It’s baffling that Tarantino, a director who made every minute count in another nearly 3 hours long movie, “Inglorious Basterds,” could make a movie with such abysmal pacing.

“The Hateful Eight” is definitely one of Tarantino’s weakest movies. While it is a beautifully shot film which features great acting from the entire cast and a superb score by Ennio Morricone, the film’s flaws outweigh its strengths. The story meanders along before finally faltering in the last act, most the characters are shallow, the mystery the plot focuses on is presented poorly, the eventual solution to the mystery is bland, and the long runtime of the film is not warranted. Tarantino spent so long on making “The Hateful Eight” look nice that he let all other aspects of the film suffer as a result. There’s so much wasted potential in this movie, if Tarantino had buckled down and improved the plot and pacing of the story, this could have been a great movie.