"The Hateful Eight" (2015)

Maybe this film should have been called “The Hate-able Eight.” In typical Tarantino fashion, we get a well-crafted, amazingly written, despicable story.

Fill a room in post-Civil War America with criminals, lawmen, black-hating-southerners, and a white-hating black man and you have the makings of a bad, bad situation. You also have an America remarkably close to the way things are today. One can imagine this movie playing out today. Except in real life Americans are no longer capable of communicating so colorfully and intelligently anymore.

And, much like today’s environment with tribalism, populism, hatred, and people all yelling at each other without hearing each other; it is all like watching a train wreck. You just want it all to go away, but you can’t help watching. Thankfully this story has an end, although it is a predictably tragic one in which no one wins.

One has the feeling that our current national drama will also limp to its end next week. That one too looks to have no shortage of losers.