A Tarantino movie, only... not.

Rating: 4/10 (29 July 2019)

As much as I love Tarantino, I really can't speak purely positive about this movie.
The biggest problem is that there's no narrative, at least not one that is followed through with. We get a handful of potential plots to follow: the troubles of a fading movie star, the difficulties of film making, the Sharon Tate murders, the concept OF a movie star. But nothing is committed to. While that's not entirely unheard of in a Tarantino movie (Pulp Fiction & Jackie Brown) it only becomes a problem in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Plot is a word unknown to this movie. Nothing happens that effects the story until the last 25 minutes.

The technical parts of the movie are perfection, Rob Richardson's camerawork is top notch, the costume design is great, the set/production design is some of the best I've seen, and the lighting is very good. The score is forgettable but decent enough.
Lets talk performances; or rather the lack thereof. I will however say that Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are pitch perfect. Other than them no one even gets a chance to shine (and sometimes not even a chance to speak) characters are introduced and then immediately forgotten about, Al Pacino talks to Rick Dalton one time, and then is cut back to once more, and then forgotten. Kurt Russell gets 3 scenes, Michael Madsen gets about a minute, Dakota Fanning gets 2-3 scenes, Scoot McNairy gets one, Emile Hirsch gets around 5. Bruce Dern gets one, Damian Lewis gets half of one, Clifton Collins Jr gets 2 lines, and Mike Moh gets 2 scenes.

It's honestly insulting, casting these amazing actors only to shove them out of the movie in next to no time. The only other lead (and I say "lead" loosely) is Margot Robbie (who i'm personally not a fan, I don't think she can act at all) who gets a decent amount of screen time compared to everyone that isn't DiCaprio or Pitt. And as much as I love the two of them, they can't save this jumbled mess.

And to address the title of this review: the reason why I say this isn't really a Quentin Tarantino movie is because he's being restrained (either by himself or Sony) from using anything that makes his movies unique. There's very little humor that hits the way his other movies do. I can count the funny scenes on one hand: The scene where Leonardo DiCaprio loses his mind and rants to himself in the mirror of his trailer, the scene where Brad Pitt fights Mike Moh, and the last 15 minutes. And there's nearly no over-the-top violence except in the last 15 minutes, even then it's still missing the blood that Tarantino adores.

I don't know what, if anything, went wrong. And the only things I can say with absolute certainty is that Quentin Tarantino loves movies, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt are phenomenal, and Tarantino has a foot fetish. (About 12 minutes is spent looking at people's feet)
In conclusion, there's next to no overarching story, a terrible waste of a lot of talent aside from the two leads, the production value is great, and this isn't a movie made by the same writer director that's been credited.
4/10