"but it just isn't anywhere near as fun or economic as Tarantino's other films."
While I guess I understand where you're coming from, I honestly consider this film to be one of the most fun Tarantino has ever made, precisely because of how mean it is. Compared to Django Unchained (where it's impossible to see the brutality against various black characters as anything but horrifying), the ultraviolence here seems lifted straight out of Looney Tunes, with the only exception possibly being the scene where the bandits clean out the haberdashery. The main cast members spent so much time laughing, grinning, bellowing at the top of their lungs, and squinting that I couldn't help but get the impression that they were a dysfunctional family who expressed love by smashing each others' faces in and laughing it off afterwards before competing to see how much blood they could projectile vomit.
As for the plot; yeah, it's not the kind of mystery the viewer can solve. The Reveal puts some of the characters in a jarringly different light, and Mannix and Warren's eventual bonding makes little sense given Mannix's characterization in the first third or so of the film. But plotting has never been Tarantino's strength; Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction worked as well as they did because the actual plots were pretty simple.
Overall, I saw it as a laughably cruel farce held together by scenery-chomping performances and slapstick. And there's definitely an audience for that.
I agree that the really fantastically set up sense of mystery that heightened throughout the movie was sort of wasted when it all blew out near the end. Somewhere before and after the movie\'s intermission were really the best parts for me, especially the Colonel\'s rather...intriguing tale.
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The Only Tarantino Movie I Would Watch Once
Tarantino movies are an unashamed tributes to trashy movie genres. They could be trashy ninja/kung fu movies or trashy crime movies, or grindhouse or western or war or whatever. The Hateful Eight is something of a departure from this, because it is less interested in idolizing the western genre, and more so in simply using the setting to tell a very unfamiliar story. All this means is that you aren't quite sure of what the film is doing whilst you watch it.
The Hateful 8 takes a very leisurely pace in setting up the story. It feels like a good forty or so minutes are spent just introducing you to a few of the characters, before they are eventually stuck together in a log cabin with another five people, waiting out a blizzard with a mysterious female prisoner. Tarantino is known for is long, banal conversation scenes, and here he is still quite good at not testing the audience's patience with them. But whereas in the past a ten minute chat about European burgers or "Who Am I?" games gets punctuated by a rapid decent into the worst violence, Tarantino goes a lot further this time around. Outside of the occasional, cringe inducing violence against the prisoner, it is hours before any violence occurs. As a largely character driven piece, the film's crowning achievement is providing you with a bunch of villainous characters who are all equally despicable, and yet it still manages to make you feel a twinge of sympathy for each of them at some time.
When the actual plot starts, the story becomes something like Reservoir Dogs, in which a group of angry guys stare each other down, trying to figure out who is a traitor. That's where the real fun (and tremendously over the top violence) comes in. I was a little disappointed with the resolution of this however. It is kind of introduced as a mystery that you want to solve along with the characters, but it is impossible for you to do it, as the story resorts to a couple of ass-pulls you could never see coming. That said, after an hour and a half or so of no action, it is still very much appreciated when things kick off to lead the story to some resolution.
I can give The Hateful Eight a recommendation, but it just isn't anywhere near as fun or economic as Tarantino's other films. That's why I will only ever watch it once.