A surprisingly flat effort from Le Q

Rating: 4/10 (8 June 2020)

I finally watched Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood last evening. Awesome cast, interesting setting and premise, this promised to be one of Le Q's best films. What it is is an (almost) complete disappointment. There is little driving the narrative. Leo plays Rick Dalton, a waning Hollywood actor who struggles to find bad-guy roles on TV series; Pitt plays his stunt man who, because Dalton's career is cratering, is similarly getting little work; and Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, whose star is ascending. Robbie has little to do here other than to walk around like eye candy. Leo's character is all weeping and self-pity - and since when has THAT made interesting drama? Characters go after something; Leo's Dalton gets weepy at the slightest whiff of failure. Pitt, however, is engaging. He knows he's on the skids, but he keeps plugging away, making the most of every desperate situation.
Le Q has a taste for endless scenes. In this film, it's just tiresome. There is a long sequence in which Robbie's Tate happens on a theater that is showing one of her movies. Nothing happens other than she sees the theater, considers going in, chats with the ticket seller, chats with the usher, takes a seat, watches the film and reacts when the audience enjoys her performance. It's all intended to point out how self-obsessed Tate was or, I suppose, how insecure. But why does this require so much screen time?
Other segments are utterly hammy and poorly directed. Much of Le Q's film Inglorious Basterds as similarly hammy and unbelievable. Here, a funny sequence in which Pitt kicks Bruce Lee's ass is marred by heavy overacting from most of the cast.
I could go on. Suffice it to say, this one's a disappointment, despite Pitt's good work. Maybe this film would have been better if it had just focused on Pitt's character, with the others incidental. As it is, it's a yarny mess. And fairly uninteresting to boot.