Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood

A lucky day off on Thursday, so off to see the much anticipated new film from Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood. Quite a few things to chew over here so I'll start at the middle. Not really, just thought I'd go for a little QT humour....hello? Hello? Hmmm. There's a lot to like about this film and a fair bit not to as well. Let's start with the positives. Tarantino really knows how to get the best out of his actors. Leonardo DiCaprio is great in the role of a fading TV gunslinger who can see the sunset of his career approaching. His attempts to handle this twilight are precious and DiCaprio aces it all. There's an especially mint section where he's playing head villain in an episode of Lancer, directed by Sam Wanamaker (which seems to have actually happened). DiCaprio's character, Rick Dalton, has been on the turps the night before and he's having some trouble remembering his lines. His over-acting in these scenes and subsequent meltdown in his trailer show peerless technique. Brad Pitt, as Dalton's stunt double and best mate, Cliff Booth, is charmingly laid-back and this, he can do quite well. Anything more though, and he's usually swimming. The other cast members are fine, even though Margot Robbie seems ephemeral AND ethereal throughout. More on this later.

It's also a pretty funny film, in parts. It starts with a swagger, clips from Dalton's earlier success on 'Bounty Law' and a tabloid interview with Dalton and Booth cuts to an almost Scorsese-esque restaurant meeting with Al Pacino's Marvin Schwarz. This scene culminates with Booth ordering Dalton not to "cry in front of the Mexicans." There are also a couple of scenes relating to Steve McQueen and these were worth the price of admission alone. Damian Lewis briefly plays the man himself at a Playboy Mansion party and Dalton explains wistfully to Timothy Olyphant's James Stacy how he almost landed McQueen's role in The Great Escape - accompanied by digitally enhanced DiCaprio in place of McQueen in a scene from the film. Excellent. McQueen also represents a successful transition from TV (Wanted Dead or Alive) to film - pretty much what Dalton is aiming for.

But here come the issues. This is a long film but not as long as you might think. The 2 hour 40 minute running time felt a lot longer for two reasons. First, there are two films here competing for our attention - the Dalton/Booth blackly comic essay on passing your prime and the more troublesome one, the Sharon Tate/Manson Family film. Now spoilers be fucked here - most of us know what happened that night (if you don't, look it up) and I reckon Tarantino's gimmick of re-writing the wrongs of history sits askew in this. I was happy enough to go along with it in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained but this felt like a ham-fisted attempt to pretend that the innocence of 1960s Hollywood didn't end that night. Perhaps Tarantino was trying to mirror Dalton's fade to that of the decade but as he signposts a probable rosy future for him, I don't buy that angle.

Secondly, there are far too many nostalgic nods throughout - TV screens, film posters, neon signs, LA streets, old actor/director references. Yes, he knows his shit but all this seemed a bit overdone. I may have said it before (possibly about Peter Jackson) but the geezer really needs a strong-willed editor.

The questionable ultra-violence in the climactic scene was a bit of a double-edged sword. It was played for laughs and I admit to one or two chuckles but I also recall muttering 'nuh, too much' at a specific point. This kind of immature, comic violence shouldn't surprise any QT regulars. The Hateful Eight spilled well over into gratuitousness and there's a similar issue here, as though it's ok to bloodily brutalise a woman, as long as she's an evil nutter. We know Tarantino makes exploitation flicks but I'd kind of like to have seen a more truthful take on the whole Tate section, even if it wasn't clear which way he'd go with it until the climax. Robbie plays Tate like a doomed princess with not a blemish to her (aside from a hint of insecurity in the cinema sequence). She's fine but she floats around, meatless, oblivious to what may or may not be coming. This is most likely due to Tarantino's semi-voyeuristic adoration of Robbie/Tate than any performance issue on her part.

Well, this was a long write. I don't want to do this film down too much. There are some great set-pieces - Booth's visit to the Manson Family's camp at the Spahn Ranch is a lesson in drawn-out tension building, and well played by all. The meeting of Dalton and his young co-star, Trudi, is excellent comic acting and the Bruce Lee ding-dong with Booth is a fun aside. But overall, I'd have to put this down as a flawed cracker. Uneven, episodic, it almost suffers from dissociative identity disorder. But not entirely in a bad way.

See also:

I found myself thinking of another LA-set, recent history, double act (Gozzle and Crowe) in Shane Black's The Nice Guys (2016). Also, why not Tarantino's most mature but under-appreciated film, Jackie Brown (1997).

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