Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019) - Movie Review

The latest from neo-exploitation junkie Quentin Tarantino is quintessentially him. A period flick set during the golden age of Hollywood, everything from the visuals to the soundtrack to the tan lines scream the 60’s as loud as they can. It’s a flurry of contemporary footage, new footage seamlessly integrated into the contemporary footage (seriously, this has some of the best integration of newer footage over older footage I think I’ve ever seen; Forrest Gump, eat your heart out) and recreated locales and old-school staples that create the most vivid picture of what Tarantino has spent his entire career doing: Tipping his hat to the old guard of cinema that made him who he is as a filmmaker.

The performances here are fucking great across the board. Brad Pitt as the acquitted wife killer/stunt double Cliff Booth (yeah, this character is far weirder than he has any reason to be), Margot Robbie embodying the spirit of the decade as Sharon Tate, Julia Butters as a remarkably precocious child actor who makes for the linchpin of my favourite parts of this whole movie opposite Leo DiCaprio, and DiCaprio himself as Rick Dalton, a Western actor who finds himself falling behind the times transitioning in and out of the 60’s. The segue from Old Hollywood and New Hollywood changed a lot of shit, as I got into last year with The Other Side Of The Wind. Seeing him get lectured by a child about what it means to never break character is all kinds of weird and hilarious, but nicely balanced out by how he seriously gets across the actor woes of his character.

As far as the cinema that gets represented here, it certainly covers a lot of ground. We’ve got slapstick comedy through Sharon Tate’s appearance in The Wrecking Crew, we get some kung-fu action through Mike Moh as Bruce Lee on the set of The Green Hornet (yeah, I know his living family didn’t appreciate his portrayal here, but honestly, I think he did pretty damn good, especially with the speech patterns), we’ve got grindhouse fare through the use of footage from C.C. And Company, and there’s a whole load of Western iconography throughout, basically turning Hollywood into the Wild Wild West Coast. Seems like Tarantino is holding onto his dusty saloon kick from Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight.

Where this all gets a bit weird, and honestly rather brilliant, is through the inclusion of that other thing that people remember from the end of the 60’s: The Manson Family murders. Now, while this is a key aspect of the collage narrative here (and the scenes at the Ranch make for some particularly tense sequences), it’s not something the film fixates on too much… until we reach the ending, which has also caused a bit of controversy and divided reactions. It basically takes the same route as Inglorious Basterds in regards to historical accuracy, in that the Manson Family crew get taken down with a mixture of a flamethrower and some especially gruesome fight scenes.

Because for Tarantino, Tate is the moment when the golden age ended. When the sunkissed glee and Flower Power freedom ceased, and the long road began that would turn 60’s hippies into 80’s Reaganites, as shown with the Manson family discussing the violence of TV and cinema as their reason for murder, echoing the media censorship their generation would undertake decades later. In Tarantino’s world, one where Hitler was riddled with bullets by the man who gave us Hostel, that Old Hollywood era never ended. Westerns, kung-fu action flicks, vehicle-heavy exploitation, broad comedies, all things retro; Tarantino made his career out of reviving and reliving this era of pop culture. And with his latest, he lays out bare what all of that means to him and how, through his own films, that golden age never ended.

It sums up Tarantino as a director in the same way The Shape Of Water did for Guillermo Del Toro or The House With A Clock In Its Walls did for Eli Roth. This also means that willingness to vibe with this whole production counts on one’s own tolerances for Tarantino’s mannerisms as a creative. Me personally, as someone who considers Tarantino to be one of the all-time greats, I had a blast with this whole thing, both as another look into Tarantino’s oeuvre and as a very funny and very bright depiction of the era he holds so much endearment for.