Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: This movie was made for one person and one person alone: Quentin Tarantino.

Imagine porn. No, not the kind of porn that you or I would watch (Well, not the kind of porn that you would watch because clearly I would never watch porn). Imagine porn that Quentin Tarantino would watch. That’s the best description I can come up with for “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood”. Like the porn that you (and not I) watch, it may be an hour long (or in this case two hours and forty-one minutes!), but you know where your favorite five minute segments are and that’s all you really need to get the job done, if you get my drift (which again, I do not because I do not watch porn). The good news is there are lots of excellent five minute segments. The bad news is there are thirty-two five minute segments to get through and it’s exhausting.

In general, I really like Quentin Tarantino’s films. He is a person who clearly loves his craft and it shows in all his movies including this one. The problem with “Once Upon a Time…” is it feels like it’s trying to be something but it’s not quite sure what it wants to be. I remember when I first saw a preview for the movie, there was no real hint at a plot, just some story about actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). I didn’t care about plot. I just saw two great actors in fascinating roles set during the golden age of Hollywood and knew it would be fun. Then I saw another preview which made it clear that this movie was also going to be about Charles Manson. This preview annoyed me because I assumed that Charles Manson was going to be a surprise in the movie, but the reality was that it is absolutely essential that you know not only who Manson is, but also what he and his followers did. If you see this movie without that understanding, a good 50% of the movie looks like absolute fluff. Any movie that requires this much foreknowledge is going to go right over the heads of most of the audience. And even if you know Manson and know his followers and are in on the “joke”, the payoff for the entire thing is completely not worth it. Since this is a Tarantino flick, it shall come as no surprise that the payoff is gratuitous violence.

i would be remiss if I did not reiterate that I am not kidding about those excellent five minute segments. There are so many fantastic actors in this film and all of them are absolutely wonderful. Despite my belief that this movie will likely alienate most of its audience, I would not be surprised if there were best actor/supporting actor nominations for the various roles.

I look forward to when people do edits of this film and simply show all the scenes with Rick Dalton in them. Then they release another of Cliff Booth. Then they release another of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), etc. Those may be worth watching. I wonder if that’s how Tarantino started and then he just mashed everyone up together to make a feature length film. Pure genius.