Continuing our Oscar coverage, guest writer The Popcorn Club has a look at Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, nominated for 10 Academy Awards.
This film should come with a disclaimer, that it’s strictly for cinephiles and Tarantino purists.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is Quentin’s 9th film and also what he calls his penultimate film. It stars Tarantino’s old faces, Leonardo de Caprio and Brad Pitt, who play Rick Dalton, a seasoned action legend of Hollywood, and his stuntman Cliff Booth. The story takes the route of how acting icons can lose their attention, and the turmoil they experience trying to stay relevant with the times.
The film shows various tales in Hollywood about the biggest stars losing their star-fame, and who better to tell it than the biggest film fan of all, Tarantino himself.
The film also stars an array of great actors, including Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate and Al Pacino as Marvin Schwarz, and it fleetingly brings them into Rick’s life in very defined scenes and situations that help the overall world fit into play.
While Once Upon A Time drags, it never feels like a missed opportunity. Its rather relaxed pace lets you immerse yourself into its environment. However, it does feel somewhat empty and cold, a satire perhaps on Hollywood itself. Tarantino uses one joke across the film to hand you a punchline, and then subverts what you expect, and it’s brilliant when it happens. However the middle does drag and even for a self confessed hardcore fan like myself, I can tell you those parts are a little boring.
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood isn’t Tarantino’s best or worst film, but it is a weaker piece. Even so, it’s hard for him to eff up. He’s an auteur, a visionary and a genius of script, dialogue and direction, and while Once Upon A Time could have been shorter and had a better delivery of suspense, Tarantino still delivers the goods, and that warrants the film an 8/10
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