Quentin Tarantino's restaging of the Civil War in a Wyoming bar owes more to Agatha Christie than it does John Ford’s Stagecoach. What was it about this cramped, underdeveloped parlor drama – the majority of which takes place on one set – that caused Tarantino to think 70mm? The frigid snowscapes that open the film put the lens to the test, but the moment the action shifts from stagecoach to soundstage, all of the verbal anachronisms in Tarantino’s loopy lexicography can’t buoy it. At a whopping 168 minutes (plus a 12 minute pee-break) the directors 70mm pipe dream could easily have lost an hour and no one would have been any the wiser. The third-act flashback reversal that served him well in Pulp Fiction, forcing even the most casual filmgoer to ponder narrative structure, reads like feeble inner-dialogue in these parts. See it in 70mm or not all, the second option being your best bet. (2015) — Scott Marks
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