The problem with fanboys is that they believe they own their heroes. Like I believe Quentin Tarantino is mine. He may have zillions of fans worldwide but to me, QT is only mine. Not even his own.

So there is absolutely no objectivity whatsoever when it comes to watching, dissecting and devouring his films. How can there be? After all it was one of his films that had given birth to dreams of writing about films, then writing films and finally directing films.

I still remember that fateful monsoon night in Calcutta in the late ’90s when it was pouring outside and Pulp Fiction happened to me. I can’t describe the feeling watching John Travolta sauntering away in shorts at the end of the film, having died in the middle of the movie. How was it possible? That’s not how it happens in the movies and yet it made perfect sense.

I watched the film again. And again. And by the time it was morning, I had become a slave to the man’s storytelling style. I soon watched Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown and started writing my own Pulp Fiction-inspired play about two guys robbing a petrol pump to watch movies.

I never finished that script. But I became Tarantinoed for life. I watched Kill Bill many many times, bought it on DVD and BluRay, watched Inglourious Basterds at the Shaw Theatres in Singapore and even played Death Proof on loop.

Django Unchained was the first QT film that worried me. And after watching The Hateful Eight, I’m convinced my QT is gone. Gone for good.

There comes that time in every filmmaker’s life when what he wants to say takes precedence over how he wants to say it. Tarantino’s agenda to celebrate the blacks by twisting little passages of American history can be a noble thought but it robs his cinema of the one agenda he’s always had: entertain!

The Hateful Eight searches for a plot for a good three-fourth of the film and even Tarantino’s lines can’t stop you from being so bloody bored. Just two locations — the stagecoach and later the lodge — and the same blizzard swooshing away on the speakers and you can clearly make out that The Hateful Eight was a play before it became a movie.

But you’d expect Tarantino of all directors in the world to adapt the play into a movie narrative with the one tool he’s terrific with — structure. Nobody splices up his story the way QT does and he clearly is the boss of the Tarkovsky experiment — of interchanging movie reels and still making a great movie.

But The Hateful Eight doesn’t even have that magic. Despite the chapterisation, it’s a pretty straightforward narrative with one little flashback in the pre-climax. Worst is that Tarantino had to use a voiceover to explain things, introducing the twist and valiantly trying to inject some fresh energy into the proceedings. It’s tough to see my QT like this.

Difficult to blame him. Django Unchained picked up the best screenplay Oscar. As a lot of politically correct and socially relevant borefests do. But if someone tells me that Spielberg’s Lincoln is a better film than ET or Jaws, that guy must be running for office and is definitely not a movie buff!

But Tarantino loves the limelight. And if his “nigger” celluloid parties are winning awards and acclaim, he wouldn’t mind. Also, he is 52. Maybe he cannot look at a space anymore without dividing it up into northern and southern territories. Maybe this is what calls out to him when he starts writing a new script.

Are his films becoming too American? Possibly. Maybe we can’t dive into it that deep because we didn’t grow up listening to stories about the Civil War. Because Westerns as a genre are a tad alien to us and still synonymous with Clint Eastwood riding a horse in the desert.

Taking all that into account, The Hateful Eight is difficult to love. Never in a Tarantino film do other characters become props in the background when two guys talk. Never do you feel that the main antagonist is not important enough. If Daisy Domergue does get away, will it really be such a big deal? 

It’s okay to not make a great film every time. But what Tarantino has done in the last couple of films is veer away to a very different turf. He still writes dialogues like the way he did, there’s still that crazy violence and endless gushing of blood, there’s still the musical sweep in places, but these films are not made by the Quentin Tarantino I worshipped. I don’t see anybody in any part of the world staying up nights watching The Hateful Eight many times over and choosing to change his life forever. 

Pratim D. Gupta
My favourite Quentin Tarantino film is....  Tell t2@abp.in