The Hateful Eight (2015)

How long can you watch eight liars eat stew in a snowstorm? Quentin Tarantino bets 168 minutes, and he only wins the back half of that bet. The first chapter is a stagecoach podcast. The script leans on ugly slurs like a crutch, and the camera seems a little too entertained every time Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Daisy takes a hit. That’s the bad. Once everybody’s locked inside Minnie’s Haberdashery, though, it turns into a mean little whodunit, and the tension gets thick enough to spread on toast. Samuel L. Jackson owns every room he talks in. Walton Goggins quietly steals the movie as Mannix, a guy who’s wrong about most things and slowly figures out which side he’s on. Kurt Russell plays John Ruth like a grizzly bear who learned manners from a law book. A 6.8 because the back half is a great mystery trapped inside a long movie that keeps admiring its own voice. $982 says you get snowed in somewhere someday and start quietly checking everyone’s story for holes.

What works: Once the doors shut, the whodunit tension is great, and Walton Goggins and Samuel L. Jackson are a blast to watch.

What doesn’t: The first chapter drags, the dialogue leans on slurs constantly, and the violence toward Daisy feels gleeful instead of meaningful.

Who it’s for: Tarantino fans who want a locked-room mystery and don’t mind a long ride to get there.