Review of John "The Hangman" Ruth
Hateful Eight sixth scale action figure

Introduction

There are only a handful of directors that I depend on, directors where I'm assured I'll like the film based on my reactions to their past work. One of those is Tarantino. I'll admit it - I've never seen Jackie Brown. But the rest of his films have been favorites of mine, and when he announced he was doing a western...I was thrilled.

My favorite genre is westerns, so a Tarantino western sounded like perfection. It wasn't far off. The Hateful Eight is a terrific film, with some excellent performances and only a few missteps (Channing Tatum? Seriously?) in a terrific story.

When Asmus announced sixth scale figures, I knew I'd be all over them like hair on a bear. However, I didn't order directly from Asmus - my personal misstep this time. Instead I ordered from another retailer, and after Asmus starting shipping them direct, it took a very loooooong time for me to finally get mine.

Of course I picked up the two released so far - John "The Hangman" Ruth, and Marquis Warren. I've finally got them both in my grubby little mitts, covering Ruth today and Warren very soon.

These two sold for about $200 each, and are available at online retailers right now. They have at least one more planned and up for pre-order - Daisy Domergue.

Packaging - ***
Nothing too exciting, but I do like the use of the poster graphics for this character. Everything inside is collector friendly of course, and all the accessories and figure are simple enough to remove and replace.

Sculpting - ***
One of the advantages - or disadvantages - of getting a figure much later than everyone else is that you end up hearing lots of opinions, even when you do your best to avoid them. And I've heard lots of negative things about this figure.

And that's a crock. This is an excellent Kurt Russel/John Ruth head sculpt. They have hit on the key features of Russell - look at that nose! - and given him a stern, appropriate expression for the character. No zombie look here, and the slitted eyes and furrowed brow imply some serious hurting is about to happen.

The hair is also very good, with some nice detail in the stranding and the wavy flow.  The head and neck are a one piece design, which hurts the articulation a bit, but does wonders for creating a life-like portrait.

So why the three stars? The facial hair.  I'd have gone another half star easy for the portrait, but the mustache and beard pull him down just enough. The impressive 'stache has excellent detail, but it's just a smidge too big. Yep, it was some pretty serious facial hair in the movie, but here it has its own zip code.

The beard itself has the opposite issue - not enough detail. It's like someone heated up the sculpt and wiped the chin and jaw smooth. Perhaps they just went too crazy with the paint, but whatever the reason, the detail in the beard itself is almost completely lost.

There's a selection of gloved and bare hands, and they swap easily enough. They don't work quite as advertised, as I couldn't get the hand that is supposed to hold the tin cup to work, and he really needs a gun holding bare hand, but there's enough variety to create a number of good poses.

Paint - ***
Like the sculpt, the paint is almost another half star here, but it's that damn beard again.

The skin tone looks good, and I love the glassy, reflective eyes. The eyebrows are clean, and even the hair line is decent, with a subtle transition from skin to hair.

But the gloppy look to the beard is partially sculpt, partially paint, and it ends up hurting what could have been a terrific portrait.

Articulation - **1/2
The only area where I had any frustration was with the posing of the figure. I'm going to take it out on the 'articulation', but it's really the boots that are causing the biggest issue.

The one piece neck/head looks good, but does limit the movement of the head itself. The shoulders, elbows and wrists worked great, even in the heavy buffalo hide coat. I was surprised at the poses I could get the arms to take, considering the multiple layers of clothing.

The torso and waist are a bit more restricted by the outfit, but the hips and knees work well. The stiff boots restrict the ankles, but that's not their biggest flaw. Their sculpt doesn't work well with the body's articulation, and the figure tends to lean back and topple over. This ended up causing a lot of frustration trying to get flowing, natural poses with a body that would otherwise have scored much higher.

Accessories - ***1/2
He's got a great assortment, and the quality is as good as anything on the high end market.

There's the hands I mentioned, eleven in total. He comes wearing a relaxed pair of gloved hands, and there's also fists and gun grips that are wearing black gloves. Bare hands include three rights and two lefts in various grips, none of them actual 'gun' grips. They swap easily, and stay in place when posing, and they included a couple extra wrist pegs just in case.

Ruth has two guns - his revolver that fits neatly in a holster on his belt, and a rifle with moving hammer. The detail work on both is quite impressive, and the paint work compliments it perfectly. I'm particularly impressed with the wood grain on the stock of the rifle.

The coffee pot and cup both have metal components, and are key accessories for this particular character. The pot doesn't open, but the handle moves and is fairly sturdy.

Like the cup, the handcuffs are all metal. You can't open and close them, but you can just pop the hands off to put them in place. Once we have Daisy, they'll be more useful.

He has a very cool pocked watch, chain and fob. You can remove them if you want - that's why I'm counting them here - but I wouldn't. The face on the watch is quite impressive, and the chain is real metal.

He also has three bags that look like the sort of thing that would hold grain or flour back in the day. They are empty, but they do make for a nice diorama addition.

Finally, he has a basic display stand with support. The stand has a sticker depicting wood flooring  on the top.

Outfit - ***1/2
Also quite impressive is the costume. It includes pants, shirt, vest, jacket, coat, hat, belt, and boots.

The multiple layers are all well tailored and fit neatly. The snaps on the vest and shirt are metal, which makes them less likely to have issues long term. The gun belt fits great, and it's easy to put on him. The heavy coat also fits great - much better than I anticipated - and even the hat, which could have ended up looking goofy, is properly scaled.

Fun Factor - ***
While the posability is a little limited by the boots and his tendency to fall backward, I did find plenty of good poses. Add in an appropriate western diorama (and Asmus has one coming), and he'll look fantastic on the shelf.

Value - ***
This guy is about $200, at least $40 below the current price many other high end companies are charging. While I have my nits, he's well worth the price tag, and I wish more figures of this style and quality were in this price range these days.

Things to Watch Out For -
Take some care putting the guns in (or taking them out) of the harder hands. Other than that, you should be good to go.

Overall - ***
I have two major nits with this figure overall. First, the beard sculpt and paint needed to be slightly better. Second, those damn boots needed to be designed to work with the body and articulation to allow for better posability.

And that's it. The rest of the costume is excellent, as are the accessories. And while I don't love the beard sculpt, I think the rest of the facial features capture Russell perfectly. Fix the two issues I mentioned, and this guy is an easy ***1/2.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***
Sculpting - ***
Paint - ***
Articulation - **1/2
Accessories - ***1/2
Outfit - ***1/2
Fun Factor - ***
Value - ***1/2
Overall - ***

Where to Buy 
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This is the first Hateful Eight figure I've covered, but I'll be doing Marcus very soon.

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