Once Upon A Time in Hollywood film review

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2020)

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Al Pacino
Narrator: Kurt Russell
A bold preamble flashes up on screen announcing Quentin Tarantino's ninth film. It's a stark reminder that Tarantino is competing with his own legacy. Can anything truly match the sheer brilliance of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction?
First cuts are often the deepest, but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood comfortably reaches the bar set so unreasonably high.
His customary attention to detail is forensic as 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, film is used to frame a story set in 1969. Fictional characters are cleverly set against true events as they mingle with real people in a concurrent storyline.
Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a jobbing TV actor who fears the big movie roles have passed him by. He is consoled by Bounty Law; a long running Western where he plays the grizzled bad guy. Faithful wingman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is Rick's stunt double, best friend and confidante. Back in Beverley Hills Rick has new neighbors. Impossibly beautiful actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) has moved in with husband Roman Polanski. Rick is excited by the prospect and could be one pool party away from starring in a Polanski movie. If only he could actually meet them. Meanwhile, producer Harvey Schwarz (Al Pacino) is convinced he can reignite Rick's career with a spaghetti western. Interestingly, the Manson clan is hardly shown in the movie. I actually like this choice, because it left a lingering thought that perhaps Manson was a danger at all times, and didn't play to the audience the way I thought it would. It wasn't a story about the Manson murders. Manson just happened to be going on at the time Dalton and Booth were having their struggles, and it intersected.
There are many pleasures to be found in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," but Tarantino's interest in replicating Los Angeles in 1969 is worth the price of admission alone. It's enough to find period cars and costumes, but Tarantino goes above and beyond, filling backgrounds with detailed signage and theater marquees, redressed buildings, and packing the radio with advertisements and glorious rock hits to set the mood. Tech credits are downright miraculous, securing the time machine nature of the feature, with Tarantino as much in love with his layered frames as he is with the characters, working diligently to take away the modern world. There's enough going on around the action in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" to warrant multiple viewings, just to see the hospital corners Tarantino achieves when resurrecting the end of an era. Very impressive .
DiCaprio proves to be such a perfect choice for Dalton that one can't really imagine anyone else in the part. It's one of his best performances, although he's arguably topped by a fantastic Pitt, that reminds viewers how wonderful he can be in the right material.
It's a glorious fusion of genres; part western, buddy movie and homage to popular culture in the 1960s. Stylish and visually stunning, it bears the classic hallmarks of a Tarantino film. Maddening tangents, delightful cameos and set pieces all provide a compulsive mixture. The cinematography, the writing, the casting, the soundtrack, all flawless. This is a superior film and sits comfortably in my top three Tarantino films. 10/10