Movie review: ‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’

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I looked forward to seeing “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” because it had a chance to supplant “Jackie Brown” (click here for my review) as the best-ever from Quentin Tarantino. Ah, well. “Once …” as a film doesn’t manage to take that crown from “Jackie,” but there’s absolutely no question that Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt do the best work any actors have accomplished for Tarantino in his nine films. With a previously self-professed cap of 10 movies in his career, Quentin has one more chance to set a new standard … but he’ll never get better work out of two actors than he did from Leo and Brad in “Once …” It received 10 Oscar nominations, with two winners as well as three Golden Globes on five Globe nominations.

‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’
(2019; 161 minutes; rated R; directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie)

NOT Q’s BEST, BUT HE GETS THE BEST FROM LEO, BRAD

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia, the updating of box office totals and awards and the updating of links on Feb. 3, 2024.)

I am a rank amateur as a reviewer of films, so I’m not going to be able to delve into all the ins-and-outs or homages or whatevers that Quentin Tarantino delivers in his epic look back at 1969 in Tinseltown with “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” What I can tell you is that you won’t find better acting anywhere.

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I’m not saying that “Once …” is a perfect film and it doesn’t manage to be Tarantino’s best (save that laurel for “Jackie Brown”), but you ease through its considerable length of 161 minutes as if you were hanging out with headliners Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. Obviously, they are the core of the story, but the supporting cast that includes newcomers as well as Tarantino favorites such as Bruce Dern and Michael Madsen makes sure you don’t start to feel your backside (much) as “Once …” moves to its violent conclusion.

In a nutshell, “Once …” is the story of a couple of guys in Hollywood circa 1969. One, DiCaprio as “Rick Dalton,” is a fading TV star who’s looking to stay afloat in his career; and the other, Pitt as stunt double “Cliff Booth,” is DiCaprio’s best friend, hanger-on and basically his entourage. Toss in the fact that Leo lives next to a hot director named “Roman Polanski” and that his wife, “Sharon Tate,” played by Margot Robbie, and the year will tell you that a major collision with Charles Manson’s “family” is just around the corner. Of course, both Polanski and Tate are not “characters,” but I put quote marks on their names since they are characters in the movie.

Tarantino weaves a wonderful story that at first can be taken as disjointed, but as it tightens to its conclusion, you’ll find yourself wrapped totally into DiCaprio and Pitt and where they’ve been and have arrived at the penultimate moments of “Once ….” Tarantino’s fans know he has been influenced by Italian director Serio Leone and that director’s “Spaghetti Westerns,” notably with Clint Eastwood. So, just as Sergio had “Once Upon a Time in the West” from 1968 with Henry Fonda, Jason Robards and Charles Bronson and “Once Upon a Time in America” from 1984 with Robert De Niro and James Woods, so does Quentin with “Once ….”

At the same time of enjoyment, moviegoers will probably say the film is too long (it is) and that it can kind of stagger around and drag until the last half-hour (it does), but a little reflection will give everyone the mental context needed to comprehend just how great this film is in its entirety. Basically, put for today’s audiences: The film is a whole, not a series of Tweets about individual moments.

You’ll find single great scenes, such as when DiCaprio encounters then acts with Julia Butters as “Trudi Fraser” on a TV pilot (remember that “pilot” reference from “Pulp Fiction?”). Butters, who was approaching 10 when the scene was shot, is the fourth-best actor in the film after DiCaprio, Pitt and Robbie. Her short time on screen can only be described as imminently impressive. Yet, you’ll also find such details as the “things” in the characters’ lives, such as the Cadillac that is DiCaprio’s but driven more by Pitt, and the radios that play as a background accoutrement in many scenes that is the thread throughout the film.

I’m sure Tarantino has specific reasons for each of these details, but I’m can’t give you chapter-and-verse and am just here to tell you to sit back and enjoy the ride.

On a down note, I’m sorry to report that there are throwaway characters here.

Al Pacino as “Marvin Schwartz” and Damien Lewis as “Steve McQueen” are just the two best examples of characters that never needed to be written into the script, much less making the final cut.

Al’s character is just a little waste of time on screen apparently to let him work with Quentin, while Lewis’ effort as McQueen is nothing more than an unnecessary embarrassment. Lewis’ few lines don’t add to the film; he comes off as just horrible; and his makeup as the biggest movie star of that day looks more as if they reanimated the long-dead McQueen (or totally messed up the perm and using it as a joke today). Whew! That make-up job is a disgrace and Lewis’ performance can only be described in the same way.

Yet, as you move along, you get drawn into characters from what they say, such as the always wonderful Kurt Russell as profane stunt coordinator “Randy” and his more profane wife or Margaret Qualley as Manson family member “Pussycat,” to Robbie acting as much with her presence and physical motion as her words.

All in all, “Once …” is less direct story-telling as it is an experience.

Here’s a look at some of the impressive cast …

  • An Oscar winner and six-time nominee, DiCaprio simply defines “Rick Dalton.” He is conflicted; he is brutal on himself; and he’s … a fading TV star! DiCaprio won’t list this as his best (I’ll say without reservation that he was better in his nominated “The Departed” – click here for my review – and certainly better than his overrated Oscar-winning “The Revenant” or the over-the-top character in “The Wolf of Wall Street”), but you won’t find any better work by any actor anywhere. And, that’s a dichotomy! I enjoyed him as much in “Blood Diamond” (click here to read my review) and it is as powerful a performance as he’s ever given. His other nominations were for “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and “The Aviator.” Of course, he followed the ship down in “Titanic” and worked with Tarantino on “Django Unchained” and was a quick-gun kid in “The Quick and the Dead” (click here to read my review). DiCaprio is also a two-time winner of Golden Globes and a three-time nominee, with wins for “The Revenant” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” and his most recent nomination is from 2024 for “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
  • A two-time Oscar winner (yes for this one) and five-time nominee, Pitt is as watchable as ever. He slides through this character so well that you just can’t wait for him to be back on screen again. Pitt manages his violence throughout, but after a middle-of-the-movie scene where the violence ratchets up, you get a taste of what’s to come. Pitt simply does not look the 54 years old he was during filming and he’s certainly the guy you want to hang out with – despite his character having to allegedly killed his wife. I’ve enjoyed Brad’s work in the “Ocean’s” series as well as “Moneyball” (click here to read my review) and the underrated and little-remembered “Killing Them Softly” (click here to read my review). He won his first statute as co-producer of “12 Years a Slave” and was nominated for acting and best-picture producer for “Moneyball” and also nominated for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Twelve Monkeys.”
  • A three-time Oscar nominee (not for this one), Robbie is terrific as “Sharon Tate.” Robbie doesn’t have a great number of lines, but she is key to the entire film and, in my opinion, represents everything good and positive in life. She acts as much with her physical presence – even just walking along – as with her spoken acting. However, the totality of her work here is simply amazing. Robbie has landed on the top-shelf in Tinseltown and more than one statue is in her future (we’re still awaiting if she’ll get one for being one of the producers for “best picture” in 2024 for “Barbie”). What a talent! Robbie was nominated for her turn as the title character in “I, Tonya” about the disgraced ice skater Tonya Harding, and was nominated for “supporting actress” in “Bombshell.” You’ll also remember her as “Harley Quinn” from “Suicide Squad.” She was also in “The Wolf of Wall Street” with Leo. Robbie is also a four-time Golden Globe nominee.
  • The most underrated performance in “Once …” comes from two-time Primetime Emmy nominee Qualley as the Manson family’s “Pussycat” (the character is a composite of Kathryn “Kitty” Lutesinger and Ruth Ann Moorehouse, according to online reports). What a superior performance! Qualley infuses the character with verve and energy until the “family’s” true colors come out in her personality. Here’s a great example of an actor elevating a character to prominence. Qualley got her first nomination for her part in the mini-series “Fosse/Verdon,” where she played Ann Reinking. The second nomination was for the TV series “Maid.” I look forward to seeing her work in the future.
  • A really small, powerful performance is by Dakota Fanning as Manson family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme. Fanning obviously got deep into the dark side of Fromme as she just oozes menace in her work here. Again, like Qualley, a superior performance. Fanning has been in “Night Moves,” “I Am Sam” and “The Twlight Saga: Eclipse.”

I don’t want to expand this canvas of a review to take any more of your time with giving praise to the work of such great actors as Dern or Madsen (and Michael had just a tiny, tiny spot), much less neat little works by relatively unknown actors such as Mike Moh as “Bruce Lee” or Rachel Redleaf as “Mama Cass” (she, too, in a very, very brief appearance) during the Playboy Mansion scene with Robbie.

It is a huge supporting cast and you’ll enjoy almost all of the actors’ work, no matter how brief of a time on screen.

In the end, you’ll have to draw your own conclusion about “Once …” (doh!). Tarantino isn’t making a documentary, so the idiotic bleatings about “Bruce Lee wouldn’t have done that” or “what do you mean this happened …” just shouldn’t even be a point. Tarantino delivers his film and you need to evaluate it by your own yardstick. After all, as to historic accuracy, his film “Inglourious Basterds” has two Jewish-American commandos kill Adolf Hitler in a Paris moviehouse.

As for Quentin, I don’t know what else to write. I can fault him for needing better, more tighter editing (every writer needs that and he’s no exception); I can fault him for taking too much time to tell a story (too many directors take too little time, but he’s on the other end of the spectrum); and, to bring this to a conclusion, I can fault him for being too full of himself (just watch the film).

However, no matter whatever any flaw you might consider, Tarantino is a director’s director and he always pays homage to many who came before and has specific examples that shaped his career. You don’t make movies such as he has accomplished without being one of the best ever … and he’s certainly achieved that status.

“Once …” will take a couple of viewings for me to develop a long-term opinion. Only once in the writing of my 373 reviews have I ever backtracked and changed the tone (see my look at “Dirty Grandpa” with Robert De Niro and Zac Efron). I’m sure I won’t for this one, but … you never know.

One note: From all accounts, Tarantino is your basic jerk while outside of a filming set – he got all hot when asked by a reporter during a PR session for the film about why Robbie has so few lines. Well, Quentin should have just answered the question, but he had to show off and act like the jerk he is and let his agonized frustration boil over. I don’t care about Quentin’s noise, but I know that he’s correct that moviegoers are best served seeing the film without first getting spoilers and I’ve tried to limit them here, although this isn’t a review that could be a spoiler for the majority of those who see “Once …”

As of the posting of this review on the morning of Aug. 10, 2019, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” was rising on the charts , according to Box Office Mojo. It was 19th with $88.7 million in ticket sales. I’ll update the annual standing of the film once the year’s tally is complete. Also, at the time of this writing, the No. 1 film was “Avengers: Endgame” with $857.7 million in sales. The No. 2 film was the remake of “The Lion King” with $448.9 million. The other films from 2019 that I’ve reviewed are:

UPDATE: For 2019, “Once …” finished at No. 18 with $141 million in ticket sales and the next year was nominated for 10 Oscars – yes, 10 Oscar nominations! It won two from the crop of nominations includ “best picture,” Tarantino for “best director” and “best screenplay,” DiCaprio for “best actor” and Pitt for “best supporting actor” (a winner). The rest included for costuming, production (the second Oscar), cinematography and sound.

“Once …” did earn three Golden Globes: one for Tarantino for “best screenplay” (naturally); Brad Pitt for “supporting actor” (naturally); and the film as “best musical or comedy” (WTF? The Globes called this a “musical or comedy?”). Tarantino got a nomination for “best director” and DiCaprio got a nomination for “best actor in a musical or comedy.” (I guess the “comedy” is that this one was called a “comedy.”)

Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):

  • DiCaprio and Pitt were reportedly the only actors initially allowed to read the entire script as they considered doing the film. Later, another person allowed to read it was the late Sharon Tate’s real-life sister, who is “thanked” in the credits.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “This is Luke Perry’s last film. Perry suffered a massive stroke in late February 2019, and died March 4th. Scott Lancer is a homage to Wayne Maunder and his role in Lancer (1968). Maunder died on November 11, 2018, ten days after filming wrapped on this movie.”
  • In another sad note, Burt Reynolds died before he could play “George Spahn.” Dern was brought in after Reynolds’ passing to play the part.
  • According to internet reports, at least two martial arts actors passed on playing “Bruce Lee.” They, again reportedly, said that it would denigrate Lee’s memory with the role. Moh, who took the part, does a great job and I’d say that Lee, knowing what he knew about film and filmmaking, would have appreciated Moh’s work in “Once ….” Absolutely, he would have understood why it is in the film as it is.
  • Tarantino and Pitt are said to have modeled the “Cliff Booth” character after the “Billy Jack” character made famous by Tom Laughlin, according to Wiki.
  • Another Tarantino favorite, Samuel L. Jackson, was in talks for a role in the film, but it never materialized. Yet another Tarantino favorite, Tim Roth, found his scene left on the cutting room floor.
  • Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “The casting of Kurt Russell and Zoë Bell as the man and wife stunt coordinators on The Green Hornet is a double inside joke to Tarantino’s films. Russell previously played ‘Stuntman Mike’ in Death Proof, in which Bell, a real-life stunt performer, also appeared playing herself.” Another note: Bell was also stunt double for Uma Thurman in the “Kill Bill” flick(s).

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