Excellent pieces never really come together and end up with self-indulgent mediocrity

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2020)

Almost any given scene in this film is excellently crafted. The acting is fantastic, the dialog is fun, the cinematography, editing, and music all work well together. But once those scenes are assembled, you end with a film that just doesn't come together. There's really nothing that justifies the nearly 3-hour run-time and entire characters, including Margot Robbie's excellent Sharon Tate could have been completely cut out. Even DiCaprio's Rick Dalton could have been cut down to a few minutes of screen time and told the same story. Ultimately, there's probably about 30-minutes of actual story here. I got the feeling that Tarantino wanted to do something like a Short Cuts/Magnolia-style mosaic of semi-interrelated characters but felt the need to do an Inglorious-style alternate-history rage fantasy also and the two never got resolved. In the end, the movie does neither extremely well. The major characters mostly feel developed and realistic (except for the villains) but they really don't have any arc or grow or change in any way. Tons of plot threads never pay off and the changes to actual history feel forced and unrealistic. Even the violent climax was disappointing with a dog (an awesome dog) really doing most of the work. Large portions of the supporting roles seem to be more a collection of cameos than a real cast, which means that it's both distracting and you don't get enough time with many characters for them to develop.
That said, Tartantino really understands character and how to show us who Cliff, Rick, and Sharon really are and what matters to them. He also does a great job building suspense in a few key scenes. It's a shame that he couldn't get all of the different parts to come together like he did with Inglorious or Pulp Fiction.