This Quentin Tarantino Western Has His Only "Good Guy"

Quentin Tarantino has never been accused of writing lots of morally upright characters with hearts of gold. More often than not, the opposite is true. We go to his movies because his characters are usually morally ambiguous; it makes them more fun to follow along for the ride, because it's unclear how they'll resolve whatever conflict they come across. Will it end with them killing people? (Probably. Otherwise, it'd be a waste to have all these blood squibs just lying around.) They're consistently charismatic and cool, but very few enter a story without baggage, or get to the credits without doing something heinous. At worst, his characters are bad people—the title of The Hateful Eight reflects that—and at best, they're anti-heroes who we like because they take part in engaging small talk about fast food in different countries and ethical debates about tipping at restaurants. To paraphrase Bill's Superman speech, it is in that characteristic that Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) stands alone.