almost great

Rating: Null/10 (28 July 2019)

Quentin Tarantino has tapped deeply into his humanity as he shares with us his take on the Hollywood scene of the late Sixties through the prism of a fading TV Western actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his aging stunt double and off-screen pal (Brad Pitt). DiCaprio combines the intensity of his roles in "The Revenant" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" with the sensitivity and vulnerability of his early days ("What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "Marvin's Room"). Tarantino again brings out the best in him as he did in "Django Unchained." Pitt seems to have hit his acting peak about 10 years ago with "Tree of Life" but he has not declined; he's superbly effective when wisely cast, as he is here (and in his mid-fifties he still has the buff physique of a natural-born Greek god).
Both characters have their soft and hard sides. With Pitt, it's the loyalty and sense of responsibility (to man and dog) combined with a killer's capacity to lay waste to adversaries if necessary. With DiCaprio, it's drunken rages and recklessless mixed with empathy and vulnerability, best displayed in scenes with a precocious child actress (Julia Butters, a female counterpart to Iain Armitage's "Young Sheldon"). The emotional high point of their relationship can induce both laughter and tears. Both reactions are appropriate for material of this depth and brilliance.
Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, who happens to be DiCaprio's next-door neighbor, personifies the appealing side of that cultural Thing called "The Sixties" and does justice to the beautiful spirit of the actress whose life ended so brutally. Although the Tate murders weigh heavily over the "metasphere" of this film, Tarantino has a surprise in store.
We are saturated with period detail (mostly from car radios, but also quotidian consumer products, movie marquees, vintage cars, costumes and re-creations of oldie TV and movie content). We even get dead-on authentic looking sequences from a Nazi-vs-Allies potboiler, hearkening back to Tarantino's send up of vintage German pop culture in "Inglourious Basterds."
What we have here is actually a modern Western, set in the fake West of mid-20th-century Hollywood but filled with car radios blasting pop tunes and news bits as well as the traditional horseback riding and confrontational violence. The scene where Pitt confronts the Manson followers at a ranch where they're living (formerly a TV western set) is the perfect blend of the two genres.
Though it drags in places and some minutes are wasted so that Tarantino can indulge in one of his worst and most unnecessary habits, this film touches the heart.