Reservoir Dogs meets The Twilight Zone on Acid.

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2019)

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is many things: Tarantino's final film (allegedly), a love letter to the old Hollywood of 1969, the second time DiCaprio and Brad Pitt have worked together, DiCaprio's first film in four years since winning an Oscar for The Revenant Movie, Luke Perry's final film, an homage to Sergio Leone, spaghetti westerns and TV westerns of the 50's & 60's, a tribute to the talent and beauty of Sharon Tate, a revisionist history of the Manson murders and, possibly, Tarantino's magnum opus (which was his own working title), but for me it's also some of the most entertaining acting, directing and storytelling in recent memory and made me me forget where I was for 241 minutes because I was so entertained by the 179 cast members and Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio's extremely exciting and vital acting.
Tarantino takes his time setting up this timeworn tale of a fading Hollywood western bad guy actor's descent into irrelevance with many intriguing set pieces such a Pitt's stuntman character beating up Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) on the set of the Green Hornet, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) arriving at the Playboy Mansion with Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch) and Michelle Phillips (Rebecca Rittenhouse) to meet Mama Cass (Rachel Redleaf) and a wry Steve McQueen, played eerily well by Damian Lewis smoking a joint with Connie Stevens (Dreama Walker), Timothy Olyphant as the fastest gun in the west on the set of actual 60's TV show 'Lancer' as re-envisioned by Tarantino, an interesting group of Manson girls including Dakota Fanning, Lena Dunham, Harley Quinn Smith (Kevin Smith's daughter) and Maya Hawke (Uma Thurman's daughter), Bruce Dern as George Spahn, owner of Charles Manson's Spahn Ranch, Michael Madsen as sheriff on the made-up TV western 'Bounty Hunter' which Matt Damon's character starred in. Also, Al Pacino has a major role as a film director trying to resurrect Rick Dalton's (Matt Damon) career by sending him to Italy to shoot spaghetti westerns and Kurt Russell both acts and narrates.
My final analysis is that this film falls short of Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Jackie Brown, but is definitely one that you don't want to miss. Think Reservoir Dogs meets The Twilight Zone on acid, and yes Brad Pitt does smoke an "acid-laced cigarette" just before the brutally violent and epic final scene with the Manson family that results in a horrific deaths, injuries and violence that may or may not include a very aggressive pitbull and a flame thrower.