Movie Review: "The Hateful Eight"

The Hateful Eight (2015)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Writer/Director                 Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography                Robert Richardson
Music                                   Ennio Morricone

Samuel L Jackson              Union Maj. Marquis Warren
Kurt Russell                        John “The Hangman” Ruth
Jennifer Jason Leigh          Daisy Domergue
Walton Goggins                 Sheriff (to be) Chris Mannix
Damián Bichir                     Bob
Tim Roth                              Oswaldo Mobray
Michael Madsen                Joe Gage
Bruce Dern                         Confederate General Sandy Smithers
James Parks                        O.B.
Channing Tatum                Jody Domergue

“That’s the problem with old men. You can kick them downstairs, but you can’t shoot them” John Ruth

How does one begin to summarize and review a Quentin Tarantino movie? Does he have a brilliant sense of dialog - everyone, even those that hate his movies would agree that he has one. With his cinematographer, Robert Richardson, does he have an equally brilliant eye to create his various mise en scènes - again, there is great agreement on this point as well. Does he explore themes of general interest, the rights of the oppressed and revenge for those crimes, and does he make great use of ironic wit coupled with multi-layered story-lines to explore his themes – yes, again. The problem comes of course when the other visual tools that Tarantino uses are discussed: guns, murder, insensate violence, and gallons of movie blood. These cinematic tools in the hands of his characters, all displaying no vestige of human morality create a dark and repellent view of the human condition. One really has to ask, what are Tarantino’s motives in writing such movies? I think the answer lies in his latest movie: “The Hateful Eight”.

The movie, Tarantino’s eighth (if we count 2003/04’s “Kill Bill” as a single movie and as proudly announced in the opening credits) is filmed in 70 mm Panavision. Tarantino and Richardson make great use of all 70 mm as they film a series of landscape shots of a snowy Wyoming wilderness, all of it devoid of any kind of life. The camera then focuses on a frozen, snow-bedecked wooden crucifix standing alone in a vast snowy plain. The camera plays very slowly over the figure while a throbbing Ennio Morricone (famous for his “spaghetti western” scores for Sergio Leone from the 60’s and 70’s) plays in the musical background. Slowly in the visual background a dark object resolves itself into the image of a stagecoach drawn by a team of six horses. They too are covered in snow while they snort their frozen exhalations. These early pristine, white, and lifeless scenes are worth remembering later in the movie, as they provide a vivid counterpoint to the later red-drenched interior scenes that are also to a great extent, lifeless.

In the coach is a bounty hunter with a wild handlebar mustache, John “The Hangman” Ruth expertly played by a veteran of many another blood-soaked movie, Kurt Russell. Chained to Ruth is an incredibly tough and sarcastic prisoner, Daisy Domergue (played in a Best Supporting Oscar nominated role by Jennifer Jason Leigh). Tarantino rapidly demonstrates his alternate world view of human morality by having Ruth repeatedly and viciously strike Daisy in the face. Leigh will act out the entire movie with a black eye that slowly heals, but with a face that is frequently bloodied via Ruth’s beatings. This new kind of norm in terms of normal human interaction is a constant throughout this movie. Daisy is not a woman; she is not even a human deserving of basic human respect. She is a talking thing deserving only of a beating. The suggestion that she deserves the beatings is made, but never truly substantiated. In this world, no such substantiation is necessary. Ruth carries a warrant for her arrest; thus he has all he needs to beat her into a bloody mess. Prisoners have no rights, they are not people. No one in this world disagrees to any extent whatsoever.

Ruth and Daisy will be soon joined by former Union Maj. Marquis Warren (Samuel L Jackson) and the new sheriff of the town the coach is driving towards: ex-confederate soldier Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins). They will each go through an interrogation by Ruth before he allows them on-board the coach. These quixotic interrogations and their intentional repetitiveness will be a pattern that will show up time and again throughout the movie in various guises. These guises are almost certainly Tarantino’s main objective of this movie: create scene after scene where two people argue their diametric views, each basing their arguments based on their personal vision of right and wrong. This point-of-view perspective in morality is easily seen as a defense of "moral relativism". This is not a topic I object to in general unless it is pushed to extremes; when it is pushed to violent extremes as Tarantino routinely does, then even the existence of morality must be called into question. There is no longer any right/wrong duality in Tarantino’s cinematic world. Such a world is characterized only by “Might makes Right”. The strong will decide what is right and what is wrong; the weak will have no say; they are merely extras waiting to be put down by the mighty.

When Warren and Mannix are finally inside the coach they will engage in a debate in the manner I describe above. Initially (and despite the fact that Mannix is shown to be a former Rebel) Ruth will describe in glowing details the heroics of Warren as a Union officer during the war, including even allusions to the fact that Warren has a signed letter from President Abraham Lincoln. Mannix undeterred will then proceed to redefine for Ruth the nature of Warren’s actual “heroics”. He will show that one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist, and not just that, but that in fact Warren’s heroics are deeply stained by at least one act of indifferent atrocity against Union soldiers. Warren will counter that as a black man, he makes few distinctions between white Rebels and white Yankees….and it goes on and on and on. This conversation between various opponents will also go on and on throughout the movie. Tarantino will be making the obvious point of right and wrong being defined like art by the beholder. The less obvious point Tarantino makes is that the end result of each man creating his own definitions of words such heroism and morality, will be that words have no real meaning and that there is no right or wrong. He will underline this point with his oft used gallons of blood; after all, how could doing so, be wrong in such a world?

The coach will arrive in time at a way-station, one peopled by an aged confederate General, Sanford Smith (Bruce Dern at his soft-spoken and understated best), an Englishman claiming to be the town executioner, Oswald Mobray (a very toned down but still malevolent, Tim Roth), a mysterious wayfarer on the way to see his mother for Christmas, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen, like Roth another actor famous for oozing threats), a Mexican caretaker (Mexican actor Damián Bichir) and a character to be described later in the movie (but not here), Jody (Channing Tatum). At this point in the movie, Tarantino reaches back to an idea he used in his first movie, “Reservoir Dogs” (1995). There he borrowed a theme from the 50’s: the unseen enemy in our midst. In “Reservoir Dogs”, each of the criminal characters took an assumed name, and as that script moved forward, it was revealed that one of the characters was an undercover policeman, but which one?. How perfect an upside down world this was: the “bad guy” to the other gang members is actually the “good guy” in the our world; the world Tarantino refers to indirectly, but never enters for very long. He does the same things in “The Hateful Eight” – one or more of the characters described at the beginning of this paragraph bears a false name and is at cross-purposes to Ruth and his desire to take Daisy in for her foreordained hanging. The paranoia and bloodletting will soon begin.

As the search for Ruth’s potential transgressor proceeds, there will be arguments over frontier justice vs. civilized justice, the rights of POWs (black POWs), who should be hung (“mean bastards”), dead or alive prisoners being brought in dead vs. waiting for their court ordered hanging, and on and on. There are moments in the first half of this three hour movie where one might think they’ve slipped into a warped version of “12 Angry Men” (1957) or “My Dinner with Andre” (1981) – movies dedicated to arguing and talking, though to rather less violence than “The Hateful Eight”. There will be semi-comical episodes involving a door that won’t stay close with the concomitant instructions on how to keep it close being yelled by all in the Way-Station. There will be numberless voicings by all members of the cast of the “N-word”. Whether this use was to shock or to numb is hard to say, but like the over the top use of violence that drenches the last parts of the film, numb seems most like the correct participle. But for greatest shock value and to underline the difference between the mighty and the weak, Tarantino uses flashback to tell two tales of the semi-innocent and the truly innocent in conflict with the truly semi-evil and truly evil – it won’t matter though how innocent or evil either was, they will all meet the same fates.

In Tarantino’s definition of the world, innocence or wickedness simply do not matter. Each man or woman is as much on his own as if we were all savages living in an amoral, prehistoric world. There are people with guns, there are people with value solely determined by their bounties, and only by the bounty on their heads, and there are the people without guns just waiting to be killed. They can be cheerful and thoughtful and happy, but none of that matters In Tarantino-land. Tarantino sees no morality in this world, he sees only some people playing at morality and some that make no attempt whatsoever to even play at it. Thus, his movies overflow with mayhem, with violence, and with pointless death. In “The Hateful Eight” Tarantino even undoes whatever moral value he gave Django in punishing the nearly inhuman white slave owners with the same death they had recently dealt daily to their black slaves (“Django Unchained”, 2012). Even the “morality” of revenge, of just punishment for horrendous crimes (see also 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” for a similar theme) is absent from “The Hateful Eight”. What is left of value in the story presented with this movie – like the absence of morality, there is no value left in this story. It is nihilism taken to its fullest extent.

It is hard to say this movie is for no one. There is great technical merit in the camera-work, in the exotic and occasionally beautiful music that accompanies the scenes on the screen; I especially love the way Bob plays “Silent Night”. There is fine, memorable acting by Leigh, Dern, Jackson, Goggins and Russell. The script contains some surprises and carefully constructed dialog that exposes the weakness of many arguments told seemingly from a high moral ground, but are really often merely self-serving. But in this movie, more so that in all previous Tarantino movies, the use of violence and bloodshed shown in an attempt to typify moral ambiguities reached a point where it only seems gratuitous. Is this a movie designed to demonstrate moral hypocrisy (see the quote from Ruth at this review’s beginning) or only to wallow in it? This movie is for Tarantino aficionados only; a group that most definitely includes me. I can watch this movie and find things of interest and value. I can watch this movie and walk away thinking Tarantino overshot his mark this time, but not hate the movie, only feel disappointed. For anyone else, not an ardent fan of Tarantino and his chosen style and themes, is this a movie for them; no I don't think so. No, this movie is for his fans alone with the possible exception of film schools showing where genius sometimes fails.

Movie Review: "Jupiter Ascending"

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

PG-13

2.5 Stars out of 5

Writer/Directors                Andy and Lana Wachowski
Cinematography                John Toll
Music                                   Michael Giacchino
Art Direction                       Charlie Revai (Supervising Art Director)

Jupiter Jones                       Mila Kunis
Channing Tatum                 Caine Wise
Sean Bean                            StingerApini
Eddie Redmayne                Balem Abrasax
Tuppence Middleton        Kalique Abrasax
Douglas Booth                   Titus Abrasax
Maria Doyle Kennedy       Aleksa

 

In 1984 David Lynch tried to bring to the screen Frank Herbert’s masterpiece, Dune. The movie was visionary in many ways with remarkable artwork and a sense of just how alien a human civilization far into the future could be. That being said, the movie was something of a mess; perhaps a cinematic example of one’s grasp not equaling one’s reach. In the book, Dune was a fully realized world of customs, cultures, characters and yes, the basics of science fiction, technology and action sequences. But can such a wide ranging world vision be also fully realized in a single two or three hour movie? David Lynch failed to do so in “Dune”, and now the Wachowski siblings have failed as well with their 2015, “Jupiter Ascending”. Somewhat like “Dune”, the Wachowski’s have tried to grasp just how alien a human civilization could be (while telling a young woman-centric tale), but like Lynch their reach has just as surely failed to create a story that both incorporates a vision of that alien universe and a coherent story line that has any kind of connection to the viewing audience.

The film starts off in a mildly promising manner as it describes how Jupiter Jones’ (Mila Kunis) parents meet and fall in love in St. Petersburg, Russia. After losing her husband during a robbery, Aleksa (Maria Doyle Kennedy) flees to America with her soon to be born daughter, Jupiter. Jupiter grows to be a young woman that works as a maid to the wealthy. The audience is led to believe Jupiter has dreams beyond cleaning toilets. Meanwhile, the film shifts to the Abrasax siblings: Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), and Titus (Douglas Booth). These three scions of a powerful family seem to come straight out of a play by Shakespeare (King Lear?). They war amongst themselves even as their wealth comes from “harvesting” planets such as Earth. The harvest consists of sacrificing the populations of the galaxy’s various Earth-like planets in order to create a type of youth serum. These early parts of the story are reasonably straightforward, but the story then gets intentionally byzantine as it tries to detail how the three Abrasax siblings vie with one another to capture Jupiter. You might reasonably wonder why a toilet-cleaning Russian émigré to America would be such a hot target. Evidently, Jupiter is an exact genetic match for the deceased matriarch to the Abrasax family, and thus a threat or a target of one sort or the other to Balem & Co. Sent in to “rescue” Jupiter is Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a gene splice from human and wolf genomes. Fortunately for Jupiter, her future beau looks more human than canine. In any event, a series of CGI and live action stunts quickly ensues as everyone jockeys to control Jupiter.

According to statements made by Lana Wachowski, she was inspired by Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” when she co-wrote this movie with her brother. Her intent was to show that strong female characters could find a way to solve their problems without resorting to the tactics employed by males. That may have been her intent, but what she and her brother have produced is a series of meetings between Jupiter, her companion/protector Caine (i.e. Toto) and the three Abrasax offspring; each meeting linked by standard sci-fi CGI pyrotechnics. Admittedly, the stunts and CGI are impressive, most notably an extended fight above Chicago. But the meetings are repetitive and inane: Jupiter is asked in two of the three meetings to sign away her genetic rights, the audience knows this is a big mistake, and at the last moment, Toto/Caine rushes in to save her. This script, poorly defined as it is, is still clear enough for the average viewer to look at it, yawn, and mumble to themselves, been there, done that. Was this script really written by the same authors that wrote “Cloud Atlas” (2012) – a truly thoughtful and coherent film with something to say about the endurance of love, the abuse of the weak by bullies, and the ravages being wreaked upon the Earth?

I am fully willing to grant the Wachoskis’ and their Art Director, Charlie Revai high marks for an intriguing vision brought to the many alien set pieces. Much of the wardrobe and clever notions as to what gene splicing might do, or what a far future robot might look like were quite entertaining. And there were multiple sequences where humor was well done; most notable was a longish segment wherein Jupiter had to run a bureaucratic gauntlet to gain her genetic rights. This latter part of the movie had a scene between robots of identical appearance but opposite agenda contesting one another, and yet one more segment played by Terry Gilliam of “Brazil” (1985) replaying a scene from “Brazil” as he finally grants Jupiter her rights. The other technical aspect of the movie worth commenting on is the score by Michael Giacchino. I may be in the minority based on other reviews I have read (reviews that commented favorably on the score), but I found the score to be bombastic; though it was fully in sync with the whole notion of a movie played as yet one more comic-book inspired film.

If one wants to see a movie propelled by special effects, “Jupiter Ascending” may be the movie to see. But I found it seriously disappointing. The art work, the costumes, and the hints of ideas as to just how exotic a human civilization could become suggest to me a movie with much more depth than just one more action-packed space opera. This movie could have been like “Cloud Atlas” a movie that used science fiction to explore ideas and themes that could not be explored in any other genre. Instead, it settled for one more example of the comic book movie genre, never really getting into any ideas worth thinking about. Frankly, if a fun, mindless space opera is what you want, go see “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014); it’s better made, more logically written and much more entertaining.

Movie Review: Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher (2014)

Four Stars out of Five

R

Mark Schultz: Channing Tatum

David Schultz: Mark Ruffalo

John E. DuPont: Steve Carrell

Jean DuPont: Vanessa Redgrave

Director: Bennett Miller

Writer: E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman

As a former high school wrestler, I took particular interest in “Foxcatcher” for its story of two American Olympic wrestlers. This 2014 movie directed by Bennett Miller and written by the team of E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman recreates events describing the lives of two American Gold Medal wrestling Olympians, brothers Mark and David Schultz; their lives from 1986 to 1996. In this movie, knowing the ending is not quite the spoiler it might be with most movies since the events are a matter of historical record. But more to the point, “Foxcatcher” is not really movie about wrestling, but is instead one dedicated to comparing the lives of the wealthy 1% to those working for the wealthy; and along the way doing a very decent job of showing the sport of wrestling.

The movie begins in a nearly perfect fashion as director Miller and his writers very deftly show the nature of Mark Schultz’ (Channing Tatum) physical life with strong hints as to his internal life. Like his older brother Dave, Mark won a gold medal in wrestling at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. But this highlight in his life has not made his life easy. He is not shown working at any job but rather only preparing for the 1987 World Wrestling Championships in Paris; that is with the exception of a brief lecture he gives for $20 to a group of elementary school children. When you watch this movie, and I strongly recommend that you do so, watch his face as he tries to give his talk. His intensity might be that of an impassioned athlete, or it might be the symptoms of a young man coming psychologically unraveled. While Tatum captures Mark’s misery beautifully throughout the film, one of the flaws in the film is that we are not really privy to the nature of Mark’s mental unease. There is a hint that it comes from living in the shadow of his older, far better adjusted brother; a brother that has essentially raised Mark from his early youth to adulthood, and who has proven to be an excellent coach for Mark’s wrestling training. But what is truly eating Mark remains largely unclear.

David on the other hand is married with two children, and seemingly everyone in David’s family is happy and mentally sound. He is an expert wrestler and coach. He works for the fictional Wexler University and has been approached by an American wrestling organization to move to greater things as a coach. David is happy and growing, Mark is sick and sinking. Into this mix, marches the even more mentally-troubled John E. DuPont, scion to the DuPont family’s wealth. John wants to start a wrestling training camp at his home near Valley Forge, PA. Mark rushes literally and figuratively into John’s arms, while David demurs. The second third of the movie shows Mark’s subjugation by John. At first Mark prospers, but in time the corrosive nature of John’s influence causes Mark to seriously lose his athletic grip. This is made clear at the tryouts in Pensacola FL for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Fortunately for Mark, Dave is there to step in and bring him to his senses (or as close as Mark can get to them). Dave played by Mark Ruffalo is in many ways someone who knows himself. He has his loving family, his career, and a sense of where he is going in life. Ruffalo’s performance was certainly good enough to earn him his 2015 Oscar nomination for supporting actor as his performance is nuanced and compassionate. His David is someone that everyone in the movie (with one exception) admires and wants to associate with. He is able to save his little brother from John DuPont, but he does not yet know the price he will pay for such an act.

John DuPont is played by Steve Carrell, and like Ruffalo, played so well that Carrell also earned an Oscar nomination, this one for best actor. John is in a lifelong fight with his mother, Jean (Vanessa Redgrave). It is pretty clear that it is a losing fight for John, and almost as clear that Jean does not even consider it a fight. She has a passion for horses, while John has been searching for a similar passion. He has decided that being a coach and mentor to a wrestling team is his goal. He works to create a training site on his mother’s property and begins to hire various American wrestlers that have the potential to become Olympians. That John has no athletic ability (he can hardly stand straight up), knows less than nothing about wrestling moves beyond the most basic, and in fact appears to be mentally unbalanced, does not stop him from working towards his goal. That he can do so, is of course the result of his family’s great wealth. The writers Frye and Futterman really seem intent on making the distinction between the “haves” and the “have nots” the central sub-text of the story. Because of his wealth, John can buy a wrestling team, an armored vehicle with a 50 caliber machine gun, and shoot on the rifle range with the local police force; but he cannot please his mother.

The attitudes of the wealthy are alluded to in clear fashion as the movie opens with multiple scenes of the rich with their horses, fox chases, their hounds. The attitudes of the wealthy towards their animals, their possessions do not differ markedly from John’s attitude towards his employees. They aren’t people like he and his mother, they are not even employees, they are things to be owned and to be used. To be used, that is his primary thought. He hired Mark to own him. He expects the slavish attention and implied homoerotic affection that their close physical interactions while on the wrestling mat demand. Whether John was a homosexual or not is not explored, that he believes he can demand Mark to do anything he requires is very evident. John can order and get anything he wants from all around but for two people: his mother and David. One of the best scenes in the movie is Redgrave’s tired conversation with john as she makes it abundantly clear that she does not care for wrestling (thus demeaning the very thing John is making his raison d’etre) but at the same time she will tolerate it. One gets the feeling she not only demeans him with her acceptance of his fancies, but at the same time, she seems to back away from the mental illness she too perceives lurking in the background of John’s troubled and unfulfilled mind.

As superb as the open scenes were with “Foxcatcher”, the segue from the play time of the wealthy to the grubby little life of Mark Schultz, the closing scenes of the now unhinged John are rushed into. And not just rushed into, but done so with little explication. We see John watching his paid for infomercial extolling his abilities as a wrestling coach and mentor, and then with little dramatic buildup or meaning, we watch him casually drive out into the snow and commit an act of violence that will lead to prison. The movie then switches to Mark living as a cage fighter, something he had previously derided. It is not made in any way clear what Mark is feeling. We now better understand him, but he seems disconnected from his losses.  The movie opens brilliantly, moves through the second reel with almost the same level of intensity and meaning, but closes far too quickly. It is troubling that Mark is not well explained at the beginning, and less so at the end; it is troubling that John’s demons are poorly defined – is he insane or just unloved? We are told that John dies in prison for his actions, so apparently not insane. But as brilliant as many aspects of this movie are, there are some vexing problems.

This movie is really worth seeing by adults. The acting, directing, editing and writing in the first third are as good as it gets, in my opinion. Despite the poor closing and some holes in character definition (not development), this is an excellent drama that displays fantastic moments of cinematic story telling.