Quentin Tarantino’s Worst Film Still Manages To Deliver a Stellar Walton Goggins Performance
Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 western *The Hateful Eight* revisits the confined, talk-heavy setup of *Reservoir Dogs*, trapping a group of characters in a haberdashery during a snowstorm. Although the article judges it one of Tarantino’s weakest films, it argues that Walton Goggins’ performance as Chris Mannix makes it worth watching.
Goggins plays a cruel, racist sheriff whose claims to authority may be false, giving the character a vulnerable, volatile quality through his physicality and musical delivery. He said he read the script “250, 300 times” to understand the role; the article also singles out Samuel L. Jackson’s guarded, mysterious bounty hunter as a standout. The film runs nearly three hours and explores prejudice, revenge and the aftermath of the Civil War.
In short
- Goggins gives the film one of its most compelling performances.
- His Chris Mannix is volatile, vulnerable and steeped in racism.
- The nearly three-hour western divides the article’s praise from its criticism.
Explained simply
The Hateful Eight is a western set after the American Civil War, when the country was still dealing with its aftermath. Much of the film takes place in a remote stopover where travellers shelter from a snowstorm and begin to suspect one another.
Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed the film, which centres on a group with competing claims and hidden motives. Walton Goggins plays Chris Mannix, a man who says he is a sheriff, while Samuel L. Jackson plays a bounty hunter; their encounters sit alongside the film’s themes of prejudice and revenge.