Quentin Tarantino occupies an incredibly unique space in Hollywood. Not only does he turn genre pictures into Oscar caliber works of art but more recently he's set his sights on rewriting history. Instead of a more satisfactory ending to Hitler's reign over Nazi Germany, this time Quentin sets his sights on preserving a more innocent era of Hollywood by erasing one of its ugliest tragedies. Tarantino does a magnificent job of resurrecting Los Angeles 1969. The attention to detail in all of the practical recreations is pretty staggering to take in. It's not overly shiny or brand new looking like a lot of recent throwback films and nothing is digitized. It's incredibly well crafted and the lived in feel of it all gives the film an authenticity the story needs to work on any level. It's also got the benefit of an outstanding cast, lead by the powerhouse duo of DiCaprio and Pitt as our two leads. DiCaprio plays the aging Hollywood relic perfectly and Pitt's washed up stuntman with a questionable past makes for a great set of tour guides through Tarantino's idealized '69 Hollywood. Regrettably Margot Robbie isn't asked to do much more than go-go dance and serve as a symbol for the naive purity of 1960's Hollywood.
But the story is a bit of a mess. Quentin seems so caught up in recreating his childhood memories of
'60s television cowboys that it eats up way too much screen time. We can establish that Rick Dalton
is losing his grip on his craft without watching him film an entire episode of his fictional television series (of which Tarantino has been reported to have already written several full length episodes). Meanwhile we're left to meander through Los Angeles cruising aimlessly with Cliff and watching Sharon Tate watch herself in a movie. Riveting stuff. I understand trying to capture the free-spirited nature of old Hollywood but with nothing really driving the plot for the first hour plus of your film, you're really testing the audience. More and more often Tarantino's signature move seems to be dragging the audience through as much uneventful exposition as possible to finally unleash chaos in the closing moments. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood pushes that formula past the breaking point and the final 20 minutes of carnage (as glorious as they are) can't make up for how dull the previous 2 hours are.
QT has also said that this is the closest film he's made to Pulp Fiction, in terms of interweaving narratives. But honestly, the inclusion of the Manson family cult never really gels with Rick Dalton's story. It feels like two different concepts pushed together to try and fill out two underdeveloped ideas. Tarantino uses the threat of Manson and hangs it over the entire picture, which feels incredibly unearned when that fear is already pre-existent within the viewer. Charles Manson is in the film for what really only amounts to a glorified cameo and the only other tension comes from a scene that seems to drag on for an eternity (not in a good way) where Brad Pitt wakes up a blind old man.
But the ending was pretty spectacular. Seeing the would-be Manson murderers be disposed of by a stuntman on acid armed with a can of dog food, a Hollywood cowboy with a flamethrower and a well trained pit bull named Brandy is pretty remarkable. It's Tarantino's way of erasing Manson's imprint on that time and preserving the bygone innocent era of Hollywood that many claimed ended the night of the murders. It saves Sharon Tate and her unborn child while introducing the aging Rick Dalton to an inner circle that could revitalize his career. Which I suppose is how you could summarize Tarantino's career itself. A marriage of old Hollywood tropes with auteur post modern filmmaking and a dash of revisionist history.
But there's an undercurrent of bitterness oozing out of Rick Dalton that seems to parallel Quentin's own disconnect from present day Hollywood. More than Sharon Tate or Charles Manson, this is Quentin's story. It's the most personal film of his career and as a result his most self indulgent. He's stated several times that he intends to only make 10 films and with this being his 9th - it certainly feels like a film from a director at the end of his run. His lackadaisical pace and wandering narrative aren't his concern, as he's more interested in exploring what interests himself than the audience at this point. I understand the lament against Hollywood churning out kid friendly reboots of every existing IP on the planet but when your alternative to people wanting to relive their childhood is to relive your own instead with a literal recreation and a nostalgia fueled trip to 1969; it's hard to sympathize. The "get off my lawn" cry of my nostalgia is better than your nostalgia is dangerous territory to occupy and ultimately what makes this Tarantino's weakest film to date, even if it has a pretty wild ending and some inspired performances.
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