A Hollywood Tall Tale

In my introductory post about my history with and love of movies, I talked about Quentin Tarantino being among one of favorite creative minds of modern filmmaking. Say what you will about his dependence on highly exaggerated violence and possible racial insensitivity, you’re not going to find major studio produced movies with such unique ideas, or as well crafted as his. And Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is no different. There’s just one problem: It’s virtually storyless! What do I mean by that?

Set in 1969, the “story” follows an aging actor, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his stuntman and best buddy, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), as they navigate themselves through a changing film and television landscape that doesn’t have much work left for them to do. Dalton is offered to star in “spaghetti westerns” in Italy, but he prefers the more secure jobs of making guest appearances on various television series. Likewise, no one wants to work with Booth due to the rumor that he killed his wife. Oh, and Dalton just so happens to live next door to director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and there just so happens to be some weird guy named Charles who is seen wandering around outside their house. To give you any more details would be giving away the plot of the movie, as little of it that there is.

Now, going back to my claim that this movie is virtually storyless, I say that because for a movie that is three hours long, the amount of actual plot that’s happening within that time frame feels like barely 30 or 45 minutes! Yes, all the filmmaking aspects of the film are great. The dialogue, the editing, the soundtrack and score, the acting, the cinematography, it’s all up to Tarantino’s usual high standards. Except most of the scenes have little, if anything to do with moving the plot along. For the most part, we’re shown prolonged scenes of Dalton, Booth, and Tate going about their daily business. We see their morning, afternoon, and night routines, and while this does help to establish character development without them talking about themselves, it doesn’t have anything to do with Dalton and Booth being linked with the Manson family murdering of Tate until the later half of the second act and the finale of the third act! As entertaining and expertly done as these scenes might be, they feel like stuff that would be left on the cutting room floor, or saved as extra content for the DVD or Blu-ray release for any other movie. But that does go back to my point that when it comes to Tarantino, you’ll never see major studio produced movies as unique as his.

That mini-rant aside, as I said, all other aspects of the movie are of top notch quality. DiCaprio and Pitt disappear into their roles of Dalton and Booth. It’s especially impressive in scenes when DiCaprio has to act as Dalton while Dalton is acting as the character that he’s portraying while filming on set. And Booth is the kind of masculine alpha male that you just don’t often see in movies these days, down to his bulging forearms that rival those of Popeye the Sailor. Meanwhile, Robbie is her ever charismatic and lovable self as Tate. At this point, I’m convinced that much like Chris Pratt, Robbie is not actually human, but rather some kind of humanoid robot who was built and programmed to be a charisma machine. Unfortunately, Robbie isn’t given much to do, compared to the beefy material that DiCaprio and Pitt are given to work with. I can easily understand why other critics were so disappointed that an actress as capable as Robbie was given this role, yet most of her screen-time is devoted to doing mundane things like going to a party at the Playboy Mansion, listening to her favorite music album, and watching one of her own movies in a theater. Yes, it establishes Tate as a “real” person, but none of it gives her the opportunity to have the proverbial “tour de force” performances that DiCaprio and Pitt are allowed to give.

The rest of the cast are mostly small cameos for Dalton, Booth, or Tate to interact with. Al Pacino is a producer who wants Dalton to do the spaghetti westerns, Luke Perry (in his final role) is an actor that shares a scene with Dalton while filming for television, Emile Hirsch is Jay Sebring, Tate’s former lover, and Dakota Fanning is the motherly figure of the Manson Family. The rest of the cast is ironically filled out by second generation actresses, mostly as hippies and Manson Family members. Such actresses include Margaret Qualley (daughter of Andie MacDowell), Rumer Willis (daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis), Harley Quinn Smith (daughter of another one of my favorite writers/directors, Kevin Smith), and Maya Hawke (daughter of Ethan Hawke and Tarantino’s favorite actress to work with, Uma Thurman). I think this was purposely done as a message about the generational legacy of Hollywood, so to speak, and it’s an interesting choice to go with, even if their roles are rather limited.

And then there’s one of the most polarizing cameos in the movie, Mike Moh as Bruce Lee, during his days as Kato on The Green Hornet. I must confess, the Bruce Lee scene was among the scenes I was the most eager to see based on the movie’s trailer. Yes, Moh’s impersonation of Lee is spot-on in terms of voice and mannerisms, and if Hollywood ever wants to do another biopic about Lee (Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story remains the only good offering, but that’s going all the way back to 1993), he would be a fine choice to go with. That being said, as good as Moh’s performance is, it’s overshadowed by the fact that Lee is made to come across as being full of himself, claiming that while he respects Cassius Clay (pre-name change Muhammad Ali), if they would ever get into a real fight with each other, he would leave Clay a cripple. This leads to a best two out of three falls fight between Lee and Booth, with Lee scoring an easy first fall with his patented flying jump kick, while Booth scores the second fall in jarringly over the top fashion that makes Lee look like a chump and Booth like a badass. At that point, yeah, I strongly disagree with the direction of the scene. Lee may or may not have talked trash about other athletes, but I draw a line at the man being used just to get a fictional character over as someone not to be messed with. The scene is bittersweet in that way.

One irritating aspect would be Tarantino’s shameless foot fetish. If you haven't noticed before, Tarantino likes to have scenes in his films where the feet of his actresses are on full display. In some cases, he’s even had these scenes be part of important plot points. He didn’t have scenes like these in Django Unchained and The Hateful 8, so I can only assume that he went into this movie with the goal of making up for lost time. If we were to believe this to be a truthful account of what California was like in the 1960s, then apparently women simply didn’t wear shoes, like at all. There are instances where female characters outright take their bare feet and shove them directly in front of the camera. It comes across as distracting and disgusting, and while it doesn’t take away from the quality of the movie, it's quite annoying.

Lastly, there’s the third act, which is where we finally see what all the (sporadic) teasing with the Manson Family and Sharon Tate was leading up to. Let’s just say that much like with Inglorious Bastards, Tarantino took a few liberties with the historical accuracy of the events that happened that night. I won’t give too much away, but I will say that this is where we are given a case of whiplash, as Tarantino hits us with his infamous use of cartoonish violence. If Booth getting the upper hand on Bruce Lee wasn’t jarring enough, oh boy, this puts that to utter shame!

Overall, I’m going to give Once Upon A Time In Hollywood a well deserved four out of five stars. If you’re a die-hard Tarantino fan, you’re probably going to see this no matter what I say, and you’ll probably buy it on disk to add to your collection of his work. But, the film is probably a bit too arthouse-y for some, so as much as I highly recommend it be seen in theaters, you might want to go with matinee prices if you’re on the fence about it. It is a movie worth seeing with an audience, if only to see and hear their reactions to some of the more odd scenes. Oh, but I still think that Pulp Fiction is Tarantino’s masterpiece, and he’ll never be able to top it. That concludes this fan-picked review. And remember, when it comes to the media that you consume, be like Indiana Jones, and choose wisely.

Short Version

Pros:

• Acting performances, musical score/soundtrack, editing, cinematography, production and costume designs, writing and directing are all phenomenal.

Cons:

• Less than an hour’s worth of plot within a three hour long movie.
• Tarantino needed to be reined in with his foot fetishism.
• Margot Robbie isn’t given much to do.

Verdict: **** (four out of five stars).