I want to like Quentin's stuff again - his first two films are some of my favourites ever, and Jackie Brown was is an unappreciated slow burner of a gem - but he has lost me with a series of overlong vanity projects which only get a pass because of who directed them and the excellence (and significance of, for that matter) of his prior work. But success is meant to be built upon, not besides to, and his 21st century work - sans the admittedly good The Hateful Eight - is a testament to that.
Unfortunately, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is no different. While it is the least bad of his bad films, it is still completely underwhelming.
The main problem is that it seems that Tarantino for whatever reason has become extremely sloppy as a writer, and to see the collapse in quality of his work from Pulp Fiction to this is almost painful to watch.
The film is once again overlong at nearly 3 hours - a runtime not justified whatsoever, especially with a character and plot this thin. Unless you're making War and Peace or Lord of The Rings, keeping films to 2 hours at most is usually wise. To quote Roger Corman 'No film should be longer than 90 minutes unless it has Papal dispensation'. If only Quentin could learn such wisdom. Or hire a decent editor, for that matter.
This is mainly because none of the characters have any arc to them, sans that of DiCaprio's, of which is resolved within the first 90 minutes and has no stakes or tension to it at all.
Robert Downey Snr. Noted that for any screenplay to work, a main character always needs to be 'in a hurry'. It seems like Tarantino forgot this basic rule, because nowhere in this film is there any legitimate stakes involved or goals to be reached. If there is no conflict in a story, there is boredom, and this movie is perhaps Tarantino's most boring outside of the equally dull Django Unchained. It doesn't help that all of the characters talk like Tarantino himself - even the children do, for goodness sake. It becomes an unintentional version of that scene in Being John Malkovich whereby the eponymous actor goes inside his own mind to find everyone there looks and talks like him, but without the clever writing and awkwardness that made that stuff worth it.
The weak plot itself doesn't help - the main instigator of the story (that being the unwise inclusion of the M. Familys and Sharon Tate - more on that later) doesn't start until an hour in, and runs out of steam by the end. Meanwhile all between this we are watching overlong Bruce Lee fight scenes and party parts and a lot of it indeed goes nowhere. I know Tarantino likes to use the term 'hangout movie' to describe stuff like this, but that is excusable in films which have strong enough characters to justify that style of filmmaking, like Five Easy Pieces or Clerks, for example. Far less so when the characters have no noticeable goals or any depth to them, with the only personality being of the actors who play them.
Meanwhile, it has legitimately nothing to say about the time period it takes place in, the movie industry in that time period or even the hippy counterculture it touches on. Why make it a period piece if you don't say anything about the period you place it in, especially given Quentin's love for that era of filmmaking as well? It is all a big missed opportunity, especially in light of how at least his other period pieces had something to say about their respective time periods, or used such a setting to aid the story. It seems that Tarantino is so concerned of portraying that era as idyllically as possible that he refuses to portray it in any other way than in a bland non-judgemental way.
So given that the story and characters are no good, all the while wasting its period setting for nothing, it seems that it couldn't get worse, could it?
Sadly it does. Oh God it does. It's now time to address the elephant in the room - the M. Familys. Now while I was always worried about that rearing its ugly head in this movie - whatever Tarantino does well, being subtle and in good taste isn't it, especially in most of his 21st century film in which sadistic violence goes way too far, too often for the sake of it - this movie unfortunately met that low bar and ran with it. In fact, with all the questionable controversial historical topics Tarantino has exploited for his films in the past - World War 2 and the American Civil War - this has to be the worst in terms of tone, misjudgement and simple taste alone.
Why, dear reader I hear you ask? It's because the Family themselves, instead of being the dangerous cult that they were, are portrayed as dim witted hippies at best, and as Saturday morning cartoon villains at worst. That seems to me to be totally tasteless given how evil they actually were, and how recent the events actually were. Compare this to his other portrayals of this stuff. In Inglorious Basterds, the German soldiers there are portrayed fairly realistically given what happened (many of them being basic soldiers and nothing more) and the true villains were at least portrayed as nasty slime who could have actually been, and not cartoonish bad guys. Compare it to this film, whereby the M. Family Family and the Tate murders is the entire impetus for at least the second half and eats a good chunk of the film. Add to that the fact that the cult members in the film are all the real life ones, as well as these events being far more recent than the aforementioned WW2, and it makes all the worse. Meanwhile Tate herself has little role, and few scenes as well - not to mention how they get an actress who doesn't look like her, which is quite distracting when she watches one of her actual films in-movie - making it a waste of her character, and undermining her tragedy in that way as well. Way to go, Quentin.
Meanwhile, their deaths in the film makes the problem far more damning. All of them are extremely violent and probably aren't too far off the Jim VanBebber version of this tale (albeit with a far higher budget), and feel all in very bad taste, given both that those involved were real people and that it directly changes the coarse of history (Sharon Tate lives, in case you didn't know). It once again feels rather rotten and morally bankrupt, especially given how recent this stuff was, and how badly it pales in comparison to the aforementioned period pieces that QT has done - mainly that with Inglorious Basterds, WW2 German soldiers have already been the jokey and OTT bad guys in several movies and video games at this point, as well as how in Django, none of the people involved were real. And given that this film has no sense of humour or tongue-in-cheek elements to speak of much, of which would have gone some way to justify the inclusion of the M. Familys and Sharon Tate.
It all reminds me of comic book writer Grant Morrison criticising his fellow alumni Frank Miller (another Tarantino surrogate! Why does it keep coming back to that? Never mind.) when he was writing his graphic novel Holy Terror as a Batman story. There, Morrison stated that it was 'decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world'. That is as true for QT as it is for his chum Frankie boy - given how serious the M. Family murders actually were, and the deaths and horror caused, it is beyond inappropriate to portray in such a dumbed down, comic book-esque fashion. Now this stuff is undeniably tricky, and while I'm glad he at least had the hutzpah to get approval from Sharon's sister Debra Tate (and I'm not for one second doubting her judgement here), the fact that he went for this at all speaks rather poorly to him, and his overall taste. I just can't wait for his inevitable film on the next tragedy he wants to turn in to exploitation sleaze.
But the reason that the rating isn't significantly lower is that it has good points, and it's main crime is that (sans the M. Family stuff), it's just incredibly boring and not very interesting. It is bland rather than annoyingly offensive and evil, like his worst work in the Kill Bill movies and Django Unchained.
The good points are here meanwhile. The acting, as expected from Tarantino, is great. This even includes the nepotist Maya Hawke who does a great job of playing herself (as a ditzy young hippie, of course!). Meanwhile, the film is very well shot, and the period detail is definitely the most on point it has been for any of Tarantino's period pieces. Including a good Bruce Lee lookalike and Damien Lewis being on point as Steve McQueen was a nice touch. And while there isn't much character development on display, that which is there is much welcomed - especially that of DiCaprio's when it comes, making it the most entertaining parts of the movie as a result.
But overall, this is weak and Tarantino on his bad form again. It is overlong non-period piece with weak characterisation and storytelling, which in no way justifies its nearly 3 hour runtime. Meanwhile, it's portrayal of the M. Familys perhaps is the worst and most misjudged one of that case in movie history, and definitely the worst of QT's period pieces. It is well-acted and shot, but all of that can't polish a turd. It is a shame, given how talented he was once was, and The Hateful Eight showed signs of what he could be. But for now, we're stuck with this. Hopefully his last movie will be much better than this.
Unfortunately, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is no different. While it is the least bad of his bad films, it is still completely underwhelming.
The main problem is that it seems that Tarantino for whatever reason has become extremely sloppy as a writer, and to see the collapse in quality of his work from Pulp Fiction to this is almost painful to watch.
The film is once again overlong at nearly 3 hours - a runtime not justified whatsoever, especially with a character and plot this thin. Unless you're making War and Peace or Lord of The Rings, keeping films to 2 hours at most is usually wise. To quote Roger Corman 'No film should be longer than 90 minutes unless it has Papal dispensation'. If only Quentin could learn such wisdom. Or hire a decent editor, for that matter.
This is mainly because none of the characters have any arc to them, sans that of DiCaprio's, of which is resolved within the first 90 minutes and has no stakes or tension to it at all.
Robert Downey Snr. Noted that for any screenplay to work, a main character always needs to be 'in a hurry'. It seems like Tarantino forgot this basic rule, because nowhere in this film is there any legitimate stakes involved or goals to be reached. If there is no conflict in a story, there is boredom, and this movie is perhaps Tarantino's most boring outside of the equally dull Django Unchained. It doesn't help that all of the characters talk like Tarantino himself - even the children do, for goodness sake. It becomes an unintentional version of that scene in Being John Malkovich whereby the eponymous actor goes inside his own mind to find everyone there looks and talks like him, but without the clever writing and awkwardness that made that stuff worth it.
The weak plot itself doesn't help - the main instigator of the story (that being the unwise inclusion of the M. Familys and Sharon Tate - more on that later) doesn't start until an hour in, and runs out of steam by the end. Meanwhile all between this we are watching overlong Bruce Lee fight scenes and party parts and a lot of it indeed goes nowhere. I know Tarantino likes to use the term 'hangout movie' to describe stuff like this, but that is excusable in films which have strong enough characters to justify that style of filmmaking, like Five Easy Pieces or Clerks, for example. Far less so when the characters have no noticeable goals or any depth to them, with the only personality being of the actors who play them.
Meanwhile, it has legitimately nothing to say about the time period it takes place in, the movie industry in that time period or even the hippy counterculture it touches on. Why make it a period piece if you don't say anything about the period you place it in, especially given Quentin's love for that era of filmmaking as well? It is all a big missed opportunity, especially in light of how at least his other period pieces had something to say about their respective time periods, or used such a setting to aid the story. It seems that Tarantino is so concerned of portraying that era as idyllically as possible that he refuses to portray it in any other way than in a bland non-judgemental way.
So given that the story and characters are no good, all the while wasting its period setting for nothing, it seems that it couldn't get worse, could it?
Sadly it does. Oh God it does. It's now time to address the elephant in the room - the M. Familys. Now while I was always worried about that rearing its ugly head in this movie - whatever Tarantino does well, being subtle and in good taste isn't it, especially in most of his 21st century film in which sadistic violence goes way too far, too often for the sake of it - this movie unfortunately met that low bar and ran with it. In fact, with all the questionable controversial historical topics Tarantino has exploited for his films in the past - World War 2 and the American Civil War - this has to be the worst in terms of tone, misjudgement and simple taste alone.
Why, dear reader I hear you ask? It's because the Family themselves, instead of being the dangerous cult that they were, are portrayed as dim witted hippies at best, and as Saturday morning cartoon villains at worst. That seems to me to be totally tasteless given how evil they actually were, and how recent the events actually were. Compare this to his other portrayals of this stuff. In Inglorious Basterds, the German soldiers there are portrayed fairly realistically given what happened (many of them being basic soldiers and nothing more) and the true villains were at least portrayed as nasty slime who could have actually been, and not cartoonish bad guys. Compare it to this film, whereby the M. Family Family and the Tate murders is the entire impetus for at least the second half and eats a good chunk of the film. Add to that the fact that the cult members in the film are all the real life ones, as well as these events being far more recent than the aforementioned WW2, and it makes all the worse. Meanwhile Tate herself has little role, and few scenes as well - not to mention how they get an actress who doesn't look like her, which is quite distracting when she watches one of her actual films in-movie - making it a waste of her character, and undermining her tragedy in that way as well. Way to go, Quentin.
Meanwhile, their deaths in the film makes the problem far more damning. All of them are extremely violent and probably aren't too far off the Jim VanBebber version of this tale (albeit with a far higher budget), and feel all in very bad taste, given both that those involved were real people and that it directly changes the coarse of history (Sharon Tate lives, in case you didn't know). It once again feels rather rotten and morally bankrupt, especially given how recent this stuff was, and how badly it pales in comparison to the aforementioned period pieces that QT has done - mainly that with Inglorious Basterds, WW2 German soldiers have already been the jokey and OTT bad guys in several movies and video games at this point, as well as how in Django, none of the people involved were real. And given that this film has no sense of humour or tongue-in-cheek elements to speak of much, of which would have gone some way to justify the inclusion of the M. Familys and Sharon Tate.
It all reminds me of comic book writer Grant Morrison criticising his fellow alumni Frank Miller (another Tarantino surrogate! Why does it keep coming back to that? Never mind.) when he was writing his graphic novel Holy Terror as a Batman story. There, Morrison stated that it was 'decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world'. That is as true for QT as it is for his chum Frankie boy - given how serious the M. Family murders actually were, and the deaths and horror caused, it is beyond inappropriate to portray in such a dumbed down, comic book-esque fashion. Now this stuff is undeniably tricky, and while I'm glad he at least had the hutzpah to get approval from Sharon's sister Debra Tate (and I'm not for one second doubting her judgement here), the fact that he went for this at all speaks rather poorly to him, and his overall taste. I just can't wait for his inevitable film on the next tragedy he wants to turn in to exploitation sleaze.
But the reason that the rating isn't significantly lower is that it has good points, and it's main crime is that (sans the M. Family stuff), it's just incredibly boring and not very interesting. It is bland rather than annoyingly offensive and evil, like his worst work in the Kill Bill movies and Django Unchained.
The good points are here meanwhile. The acting, as expected from Tarantino, is great. This even includes the nepotist Maya Hawke who does a great job of playing herself (as a ditzy young hippie, of course!). Meanwhile, the film is very well shot, and the period detail is definitely the most on point it has been for any of Tarantino's period pieces. Including a good Bruce Lee lookalike and Damien Lewis being on point as Steve McQueen was a nice touch. And while there isn't much character development on display, that which is there is much welcomed - especially that of DiCaprio's when it comes, making it the most entertaining parts of the movie as a result.
But overall, this is weak and Tarantino on his bad form again. It is overlong non-period piece with weak characterisation and storytelling, which in no way justifies its nearly 3 hour runtime. Meanwhile, it's portrayal of the M. Familys perhaps is the worst and most misjudged one of that case in movie history, and definitely the worst of QT's period pieces. It is well-acted and shot, but all of that can't polish a turd. It is a shame, given how talented he was once was, and The Hateful Eight showed signs of what he could be. But for now, we're stuck with this. Hopefully his last movie will be much better than this.
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