Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
Every time Quentin Tarantino releases a new film it feels like a big deal. With his public desire to only make 10 films each release gets us closer and closer to the apparent end of his career and if feels like an event to see another chapter of this book be written. With that being said I had no clue what to expect from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. We knew our main focus would be on actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his best friend/stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) as they deal with coming to the end of their careers and Rick's feeling a lack of purpose and hope for their futures. Though we also knew that this would tackle the Manson Family as Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) is their next-door neighbor yet how this plot actually came together remained a mystery. Due to this I was also just intrigued by what this movie would end up being past just the namesake of the director. What I got was interesting to say the least, for me personally Quentin Tarantino has never released what I would call a bad film but there and this clearly has his strong style to it I have to say this is towards the bottom of Tarantino's filmography yet take that in context of who we are talking about.
The best Tarantino is an inspired Tarantino and you can tell that he was motivated by the city and time that this film takes place in. This is the turning point for Hollywood and the city shines throughout this movie. From the relics of the near past making room for the change in society and people, this is an environment that absolutely sucks you in and is something the film loses itself in which I mean in the best of ways. It feels so natural and real that it is a major standout of the film overall. Tarantino regular Robert Richardson returns once again with some amazing cinematography and I will say the overall visual style they decide to present works extremely well as they add a level of grittiness to the production design and camera overall which again helped build this really great environment.
The acting is also fantastic, being one of Tarantino's biggest and most a-list casts this had plenty to work with and overall the cast delivered. Making his return to acting for the first time in years Leonardo DiCaprio shows that he hasn't lost a step. His character is an emotional mess with over the top emotions that can change on a dime which was an absolute blast. His character is a constant force of fun but also is a great means to show the range that he can give as an actor. I also thought this was a particularly strong showing for Brad Pitt. Just like DiCaprio, his performance is really fun with off the charts charisma but you can tell there is something deeper not just to his character but also his performance. Where he is best friends with Rick Dalton and spends his days watching his house he craves more, work as a stuntman is becoming rarer and despite being surrounded by wealth and fame he lacks both. He as an actor and a character was the standout for me in the movie. Margot Robbie also brought her natural charm to Sharon Tate but I will say I wish she was in the movie more. She definitely falls into being a side character and is really given nothing to do which is disappointing. Speaking of people not being used I also want to quickly point out Damon Herriman as Charles Manson. Like I said he is not in this movie very long but he had such a presence and interesting edge to him that I wanted more of, luckily despite not really being used in this movie he is playing the character again in the second season of Mindhunter on Netflix and I can't wait to see what he does there.
The acting is also fantastic, being one of Tarantino's biggest and most a-list casts this had plenty to work with and overall the cast delivered. Making his return to acting for the first time in years Leonardo DiCaprio shows that he hasn't lost a step. His character is an emotional mess with over the top emotions that can change on a dime which was an absolute blast. His character is a constant force of fun but also is a great means to show the range that he can give as an actor. I also thought this was a particularly strong showing for Brad Pitt. Just like DiCaprio, his performance is really fun with off the charts charisma but you can tell there is something deeper not just to his character but also his performance. Where he is best friends with Rick Dalton and spends his days watching his house he craves more, work as a stuntman is becoming rarer and despite being surrounded by wealth and fame he lacks both. He as an actor and a character was the standout for me in the movie. Margot Robbie also brought her natural charm to Sharon Tate but I will say I wish she was in the movie more. She definitely falls into being a side character and is really given nothing to do which is disappointing. Speaking of people not being used I also want to quickly point out Damon Herriman as Charles Manson. Like I said he is not in this movie very long but he had such a presence and interesting edge to him that I wanted more of, luckily despite not really being used in this movie he is playing the character again in the second season of Mindhunter on Netflix and I can't wait to see what he does there.
Though these two actors are not the only things to not get their fair shake in this movie. My biggest issue with the film is simply how it handles its many plots. I don't say huge plot because it really isn't that big. Once you boil the film down to at least the plot that the conclusion of the film focuses on it feels like a smaller more simple plot which isn't a bad thing per se, not every film needs to be this gigantic 2 and a half-hour film but that is what Tarantino wants so that's what Tarantino gets. Though unlike a film like Inglorious Basterds which fixed this issue with one solid side plot that was a good match for the main story being told that both reached a satisfying conclusion with this film Tarantino expands on this world giving us various tastes of what is going on. This is where we see Sharon Tate and the Manson Family and Rick Dalton making his films. Yet where this worked for world building as far as the narrative is concerned it didn't really do all that much as far as positives. It constantly felt like the film was struggling to find it's point and voice as it wandered through all these different places which up until the conclusion of the film you think will come back at some point and mean something which they don't. It feels too big and cluttered for its own good which ended up taking away from the simpler movie that this film is at heart.
The editing also did not help with this, Fred Raskin once again joins Tarantino but he is far from being the new Sally Menke. I understand that Tarantino himself has a big hand on the editing so its not all Raskins fault but there are so many side tangents this film gets on within side tangents that make those scenes feel bloated. For example, this film often will play a scene from a Rick Dalton production either whenever one is mentioned or for the purpose of a joke. There is a way to do this and get the same result but just putting a 2-5 minute clip from this random production did nothing for me most of the time. We would be in a scene I didn't really care about due to not understanding or seeing the purpose in it (there wasn't one) and then we would go to this longer clip and then go right back to the scene I didn't care about with the payoff of the clip never really being worth it. There are so many examples of this where it feels like this movie needed to be cleaned up and more focused.
That isn't to say nothing works in this movie. As I mentioned the acting is great and our two leads are both interesting characters but also I will say this film is really funny. Filled with some great line reads and clever dialogue this is a movie that had my entire theater laughing including myself. Overall it is also just a good time, I love this environment that it decides to explore and I like all the characters. This has those basic elements to it that all really work but for whatever reason, this film loses what it is trying to be. It becomes messy and way too big for the story they are trying to tell. The style is always there but the voice isn't. This is one of my more common issues with Tarantino films but here it really stuck out to me. He normally is able to handle the longer runtimes pretty well but this one started to feel long. The style and environment are just enough to push it over Death Proof for me but overall when I look at Tarantino's filmography this is at the bottom. Again not terrible, but also just nothing that special either.
The editing also did not help with this, Fred Raskin once again joins Tarantino but he is far from being the new Sally Menke. I understand that Tarantino himself has a big hand on the editing so its not all Raskins fault but there are so many side tangents this film gets on within side tangents that make those scenes feel bloated. For example, this film often will play a scene from a Rick Dalton production either whenever one is mentioned or for the purpose of a joke. There is a way to do this and get the same result but just putting a 2-5 minute clip from this random production did nothing for me most of the time. We would be in a scene I didn't really care about due to not understanding or seeing the purpose in it (there wasn't one) and then we would go to this longer clip and then go right back to the scene I didn't care about with the payoff of the clip never really being worth it. There are so many examples of this where it feels like this movie needed to be cleaned up and more focused.
That isn't to say nothing works in this movie. As I mentioned the acting is great and our two leads are both interesting characters but also I will say this film is really funny. Filled with some great line reads and clever dialogue this is a movie that had my entire theater laughing including myself. Overall it is also just a good time, I love this environment that it decides to explore and I like all the characters. This has those basic elements to it that all really work but for whatever reason, this film loses what it is trying to be. It becomes messy and way too big for the story they are trying to tell. The style is always there but the voice isn't. This is one of my more common issues with Tarantino films but here it really stuck out to me. He normally is able to handle the longer runtimes pretty well but this one started to feel long. The style and environment are just enough to push it over Death Proof for me but overall when I look at Tarantino's filmography this is at the bottom. Again not terrible, but also just nothing that special either.