A Once in a Lifetime Team-Up on One of the Greatest Eras in World History

Rating: 8/10 (4 September 2019)

It's 1969 and the City of Angels is up and bustling being at the forefront of the cultural and social scene. Music, film, and politics are at an all-time high and amidst this heady atmosphere actor Rick Dalton is trying to get by. After a successful career in television his career is now relegated to B-Westerns with the choice of either a professional nosedive in trashy television or an equally belittling career doing Westerns in Italy. Together with his loyal and supportive stunt double Cliff Booth he navigates his way through the tangles of Hollywood in order to get a break. Little does he and Booth know how their lives will get entangled with history and how they'll unforgettably alter it.
A more modest and refined but no less wacky work by Quentin Tarantino the film is all about the two lead actors. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are the twin towers of this glimpse into Hollywood and the high life in 1960s Los Angeles. Moving at a slow and languid, almost European pace this most American of films has a subtle and underlying verve and edge to it that keep it from slipping into snoozeville. Fun and memorable scenes are to be had: Bruce Lee's and Cliff Booth's fight scene; Rick Dalton's amusing and poignant conversation with a precocious and lovely child actress; Booth's tense and unsettling confrontation with the Manson family; and the final act where history is rewritten in a hilarious and moving way. Had it only turned out that way in real life. Lest you think Tarantino's mellowed or gone soft the ending will disabuse you of such notions and more than makes up to make you get rid of those stupid thoughts in your head. With an all-star cast including Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, the late Luke Perry in one of his final roles and Timothy Olyphant you can't miss this.
Perhaps the final hurrah of the three A-listers, with Tarantino announcing retirement, Pitt mentioning in interviews that acting is for the young and he'd like to go behind the scenes from now on and internet rumors that DiCaprio would like to retire to an island and live the rest of his life there, "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood" is a warm and moving full circle for their illustrious careers. While no classic (it's a Tarantino film) this is him at his deepest and most mature. A film about actors, the industry they move in and perhaps the greatest and most pivotal era of the 20th-Century, this is one film that'll linger long after you've stopped watching and will stay with you for life.