If you show up a little late to see “The Hateful Eight,’ don’t sweat it too much. Besides the previews that are likely to be shown before the movie, Tarantino elected to have an overture open his eighth feature film. This musical score lasts for a few minutes too and all you see is “Overture” on the screen. The director has always had a love for the way movies used to be shown. When the open credits for the movie begins to roll, the font of them has an old, 1970s style look. He even throws in a 12-minute intermission in the middle of this 3-hour movie. It’s a tough call to tell if the director was born in the wrong era of filmmaking or if we are lucky to have him to give us throwbacks like this.

For those looking forward to the violence Tarantino movies are known for, don’t worry, “The Hateful Eight” has plenty of that. Greg Nicotero once again is in charge of the makeup effects and his talents are put to use. However, between those moments of action there is a lot of talking taking place, a lot of talking. Sometimes an entire scene is just two characters swapping stories. This makes the movie feel unnecessarily long. Screenwriters today can only wish they had 10% of the talent Quentin Tarantino possesses, but sometimes even he can overindulge himself.

The cast in “The Hateful Eight” is superior in every way. Tarantino always casts the best. He worked with Kurt Russell before on “Death Proof” and he beautifully embodies the bounty hunter, John Ruth. Samuel L. Jackson, who frequents most of the director’s movies, is great as fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren. The cast also includes Bruce Dern, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen. While Jennifer Jason Leigh has constantly been working over the years, she really has not made her presence felt in a while. That ends with this movie as she is the clear standout and will likely find herself nominated for a number of awards this season.

As far as where “The Hateful Eight” ranks amongst Quentin Tarantino movies, it would probably fall somewhere in the middle. Besides being too long, sometimes the musical score can be overbearing. Tarantino knows how to tell a story and while the movie has a three hour running time, it does have a good payoff at the end. To answer the question above on whether he was born in the wrong era of filmmaking, the answer is we are lucky to have a filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino. He’s someone who can give the audience a little something different. It is rated R for strong bloody violence, a scene of violent sexual content, language and some graphic nudity.