First Take: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood- Tarantino goes full Godard, making films about films

SYNOPSIS: A faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame and success in the film industry during the final years of Hollywood’s Golden Age in 1969 Los Angeles.

Hollywood was an incredibly different beast as the 1970s approached- and believe me, this is something Quentin Tarantino has an incredible knowledge of, you just have to look at his personal collection of 35mm prints of the good, the bad, and the downright obscure to understand that man’s love for the big screen. So naturally for his 9th film, it was about time he made a love letter to the industry he knows so well. And he did it incredibly well.

As usual, he writes and directs this one very well, and coming in at 2 hours 41 minutes for this theatrical cut (a 4 hour version is reportedly on the way for Netflix viewers), it is paced very well, with only a few small plot issues hampering the film- to say which ones would spoil the film though, so we’ll steer clear of that topic. In terms of that 18 certificate and the usual QT tropes, it is very tame, with Tarantino being more mature as a filmmaker… that is until the final act, when things get insane. It’s shot incredibly well by Robert Richardson, a veteran of Tarantino’s work nowadays, and once again, a period-accurate soundtrack is the musical accompaniment to this take on the Manson-Tate saga of 1969. 

With the performances, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt make this film come alive, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they have locked in their awards nominations already- the rest of the cast are fantastic too, the starpower in this one is unrivalled, with Al Pacino, Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Damian Lewis, Lena Dunham, the late Luke Perry, Timothy Olyphant and many others putting in some top tier work. However, I do have to agree with the majority of the critics in the under-utilisation of Margot Robbie considering how prominently she is featured in the marketing for the film. There are only small issues with the film, but it’s still pretty damn good.

THE VERDICT

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a film truly made for cinema enthusiasts, with so many references to the history of the art form- even the small issues with the film don’t hit it too much. This is truly Tarantino making a love letter to the industry he loves so much, and if this is indeed his penultimate film, the bar is set high for film 10.

RATING: 4.5/5