You Can't Teach an Old Filmmaker New Tricks

Rating: 5/10 (15 February 2020)

More confirmation that too much of Hollywood is remaking, rebooting, rehashing every old idea it can get it's hands on.
Like Martin Scorsese's The Irishman was a rip off of every gangster film he made before it, Tarantino is apparently also an old dog to whom new tricks (or even scripts) cannot be taught.
If you're a fan of alternative history, which Tarantino obviously is, you may appreciate OUTH. Because it's essentially the same story as Inglourious Basterds, but moved from WWII Europe to late 1960's LA.
But while everyone knows the horrific crimes against humanity Hitler and Nazi Germany committed during the Holocaust, I doubt a lot of audience members under the age of 45 will be educated in history enough (never mind old enough to remember) what the Manson Murders were.
The problem with OUTH is, historically, until Charles Manson sent his followers to murder Sharon Tate and her friends, set on the last night in the film, Manson wasn't known for being a creepy, maniacal psychopath...except to The Beach Boys.
At least in Django Unchained, beyond already knowing America was plagued by slavery until the Fourteenth Amendment, the audience sees the atrocities committed by the film's antagonist DURING THE COURSE OF THE FILM.
So African American Freeman-Fox's bloody assassination of white slave holder DiCaprio-Candy is justified and cathartic in both an immediate story context within the film's narrative, as well as a larger historical context.
By going to the same well of historical fiction once too often, Tarantino tells the story from the writer's viewpoint, instead of the audience's. So this time around, solely within itself, the film fails because Tarantino doesn't build a case to the audience within the narrative of how dangerous Manson and his cultists were. So we fail to appreciate how he turns history on its head to right a wrong and punish the guilty.
King made the same mistake in how he constructed 11/22/63.
And without that historical knowledge shown by specific atrocities within the narratives of those prior films, the premise and impact of Tarantino's climax in OUTH is one dimensional and only gratuitous in its violence.
Instead of meandering and overly languishing in the Pitt/DiCaprio/Robbie storylines (as well life in the mid-twentieth century entertainment industry), Quentin should have devoted more script time building up the creep factor of the Manson Clan. So when those four world's collided, they built to an emotionally justified climax. And not just a bloody conflagration.
Tarantino missed a chance to offer us his take on Charles Manson. If he had showcased the madman more than in just a passing cameo, the role may have won the actor fortunate enough to play Manson an Oscar.
Because Pitt deserved an Academy Award more for his role of good-old-boy-behind-enemy-lines-Nazi-hunter Lieutenant Aldo Raines in Inglorious Basterds, than he did for his portrayal of Cliff the dutiful manservant-stuntman in OUTH. It's not really Pitt's acting that's lacking. It's Tarantino's writing and character creation that is wanting.