As hard as it may be to believe, Quentin Tarantino has previously only directed eight feature length motion pictures. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2, Grindhouse: Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight. For a career that spans close to 30 years and for someone whose films have gotten so much attention, it’s amazing that the number of those films are actually so small. Yet it’s quite a testament to Tarantino that with only a limited filmography to speak of, he is still recognized as an auteur and a filmmaking genius. Which takes us to his ninth and latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Set in 1969, the film tells the story of former TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his personal stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). After his cowboy TV series Bounty Law ended, all the offers Rick has been getting have him playing the heavy in other similar shows, but they’ve been drying up. Meanwhile, actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her husband, director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) have moved next door to Rick, and Rick wants to befriend them in hopes of getting some of his fame back.
While driving Rick’s car around Hollywood, Cliff sees hippies everywhere. They’re hitchhiking or engaged in other activities that Cliff doesn’t necessarily approve of, but one of them catches his eye. After he lets her hitchhike, “Pussycat” (Margaret Qualley) convinces him to take her to Spahn’s Ranch, where several other hippies have taken residence. A mysterious “Charlie” has directed the hippies and the ranch’s owner, George Spahn (Bruce Dern) is helpless in trying to send them away.
Even as Rick is signed to star in the pilot episode of a new western called Lancer, he tries to get Cliff work even though Hollywood is hesitant to do so because Cliff is suspected of murdering his own wife. Rick gets an offer from producer Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) to make a Spaghetti western in Italy for director Sergio Corbucci but Rick isn’t initially convinced. In an era when American stars looked down on European films for being substandard, he doesn’t want to take the risk of staying in Italy for six months. Sharon, for her part, is thrilled while watching herself in the film The Wrecking Crew at a local Hollywood cinema. She feels her career is on the upswing and nothing could possibly derail her success.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is, as the title implies, a fairy tale. It is a work of fiction based on events that happened 50 years ago with recognizable names and events, but still fictional. It’s important to remember that, particularly in light of the film’s end and recent controversy surrounding its depiction of Bruce Lee (played by Mike Moh). Lee here is presented as arrogant and a bit of a caricature, nowhere near the mythic presentation he has become in the eyes of many since his controversial death in the early 1970s. Yet Tarantino’s Lee went that way because, as the end of this film so clearly presents, this is not what really happened.
Consider the ending of Tarantino’s own Inglourious Basterds from 2009 that also starred Pitt. In that motion picture, Adolf Hitler is killed in 1944 in a theater by forces under Pitt’s Aldo Raine. That wasn’t how “Der Fuhrer” died in real life, but it served Tarantino’s vision to revise history. That’s basically what the director does again in his ninth film.
Perhaps the most compelling thing about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the attention to detail that Tarantino and his crew gave to recreating 1969. From the songs, radio ads, TV shows, billboards, cars on the road, clothes, and the like, it seemed that no expense was spared to recreate an era that Tarantino clearly loved as a youth. By throwing in several actual names from history and interspersing them with characters created for the film, the illusion that the events depicted are real is created, and thus, that controversy mentioned earlier.
DiCaprio and Pitt genuinely act well off each other that it’s amazing that it happened. Both have been established actors for decades with impressive resumes for each, but to bring them together here and have them performing with seeming ease opposite the other is a coup for Tarantino. Robbie has time and again proven that she is more than just a pretty face, and her Sharon Tate brings to mind starlets of previous generations like Marilyn Monroe or Goldie Hawn. Anyone with knowledge of the ultimate fate of Tate will be pulled in by Robbie and will have you hoping that she doesn’t suffer how her real-life counterpart did.
The ensemble cast that is assembled here such as Pacino, Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Nicholas Hammond, Emile Hirsch, and others are picture perfect in their respective roles. This is not a perfect film by any means, as some scenes do feel like they go a bit too long, but the good far outweigh the bad here, particularly with the sheer craziness that the climax brings. For that scene alone, the buildup to it achieves success and proves that Tarantino is still more than capable to reach great moviemaking heights.
