Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is a sprawling tale set in Hollywood in 1969, against the backdrop of the Manson murders, so it’s not a meditative, rural parable, just to be clear. No changing seasons, autumnal leaves, frosty mornings or any of that. Instead, he’s trying his hand at combining retro pop culture, violence and revenge fantasy… OK, it’s business as usual and, as usual, it has been hailed as ‘a masterpiece’ in some quarters and yet another ‘woman-hating’ travesty in others. The truth, as ever, lies somewhere in between. Violence-wise, you only have to brace yourself for the last 15 minutes, when all hell lets loose. (The film is two hours and 45 minutes so you get a good run before having to brace yourself.)
It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, former star of a western TV series, now teetering on the edge of has-been status. (He is, apparently, based on Pete Duel, the one we all fancied from Alias Smith and Jones; I can’t remember the other one!) Dalton is sometimes buoyant and sometimes down and, I guess, would probably be diagnosed as bipolar today. He has one friend and this is Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his long-time stunt double who is also facing obsolescence and is now Dalton’s gofer. Dalton lives in the Hollywood Hills alongside his new neighbours, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), while Cliff lives across town in a camper van with his pit bull, Brandy. Just as we have ‘Chekhov’s gun’, maybe we should have ‘Tarantino’s pit bull’? You just know that dog isn’t there for no reason.
This is a loose, meandering film as the two hang out, get sloshed, try their hand at TV pilots, and encounter the likes of Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) or Sam Wanamaker (Nicholas Hammond).
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