No plot, no problem... ?

Rating: 3/10 (21 August 2019)

Tarantino's 9th film takes the viewer to the late 60s Hollywood and probably is the closest depiction of real life events he's ever made. The main key surrounds the horrible murder that took place that same year at a household in Hollywood, resulting deaths of several people including famous actress Sharon Tate. Tarantino did not really place the events one to one as it happened, but rather turned the events upside down which gave the movie an interesting final note.
But oh boy was that an odd way to reach this point! And that is not meant as a compliment.
The main characters are sort of a burned out actor played by DiCaprio and his stunt double played by Brad Pitt. For the first half of the movie (Or around Â¾) these two are shown taking on a role in a spaghetti Western which they are a bit hesitant about at first. Tarantino had a great chance to throw in lots of references to the moviemaking of the period and basically he made a film about making films during the era. What was the meaning of such a plot and how would it affect the final events you may ask? Well, it does not! Not in the smallest way. Tarantino basically satisfied his ambition to create some scenes which resembled the filmmaking of the period and that was that.
Later on the duo got a chance to travel to Italy to make about another four westerns and when they returned an awful lot of narration was required to set things back on the road, sort of. Basically the time for endgame action was there, but this time the murderers visited the wrong house and got what they deserved. The duo ended their lives in typically gruesome fashion and knowing what happened in real life, it was really satisfying to see them coming to their ends in that way. The end.
What this movie lacks big time is the tension and connection between the scenes, characters and different parts of the film. It's not really a mess that often some Tarantino's movies can be. The first part is incredibly needless and does not serve any purpose at all. The same can be said about Margot Robbie role. I'm not accusing the film of slow pacing, because I found it really effective in Jackie Brown, which probably had the slowest tempo of any QT's movie. The history rewriting was done very well in this one, especially compared to ridiculous fictional WW II events in Inglorious Basterds. It's just that majority of the film seemed pointless and really disjointed. The visit to mysterious ranch by Cliff the stuntman ended up being really underwhelming and the final attack seemed too random which wasn't really tied to Cliff's visit. I also feel that Tate's character reveal in the end would have had more surprising effect on audience.

The ending action is very quintessentially Tarantino style and is very enjoyable. The final tribute to all the victims, guided by an alternative version to real life, is superb and so is the acting. I understand what Tarantino wanted to showcase, but I can't justify the needless parts of the film in any way. It could have been only the final 30 min action and the viewers would not have missed anything. Instead we got hours of this sort of a random flirt with the 60's cinema with no substance. No real ongoing theme in this film, but it really should have had a stronger backbone. It can't get away with that like Pulp Fiction did with ease. I see so many people justifying the non existing plot and cohesiveness, but I just can't help, but to say that this is the weakest film by Tarantino to date.