Once Upon a Time in Hollywood- An Old White Guys Wet Dream.

Movie Review- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

With enough Western imagery, needless violence, murder of young hippies, macho men and more shots of Margot Robbie's arse than her speaking, this is a movie from a different era. In his re-imagining of the Manson Murders, Tarantino poses the hypothesis that if the killers came to a real macho-mans house and not Sharon Tate's, then they would have given him what-for and the story would have had a fairy tale ending. Brad Pitt's character, the hero of the film, is set up as the cool macho man that old men dream they were: even down to killing his complaining wife and getting away with it- the dream (?). I admit from the get go that this movie was not made with me in mind, I am not the target audience, as the film is made for an era of people to look fondly back at old Hollywood where we laughed at ditsy women on screen and men were ''real'' men. It is a film for the older generation that are disenfranchised with the ''snowflake'' liberal ideology of the present. This doesn't necessarily make it bad: it is certainly a well crafted movie, the direction is stellar and the acting is knock out of the park amazing. But, for some, Tarantino's re-imagining is not a fairy-tale as it is closer to a nightmare of an era of society we would like to forget.

As Margaret Qualley's Pussycat states, actors in good old fashioned Westerns are fakers and not the real deal, unlike our protagonist Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, that is presented as the realest of deals and everything macho men dream to be: training his bruiser of a dog to perfection, feeding them macho dog food that is flavoured with rat, getting all the female's attention, beating Bruce Lee in a fight, the good friend that drives his pal around, he punches anyone that gets in his way, never emoting more than a smirk, a handyman that fixes antenna with his shirt off etc. The list could go on of scenes where Pitt is presented as the perfect macho man's man that every middle aged man wishes he was; he is the modern man's John Wayne minus the cowboy hat. He even has a mysterious back story of ''did he kill his wife and get away with it'', a rumour that would make the Great Gatsby jealous, and the scene is presented as if Booth had every reason to kill his wife because she was nagging him. There in lies the films problem for me. The movie glorifies Booth too much and makes him a celebratory kind of figure that can do no wrong and when he clearly does wrong, e.g. murder his wife, he gets no comeuppance. Everything he does is perfect and there is no moment of character flaw, depth or learning. He goes through no change as he is the perfect macho man from beginning to end. It gives an unachievable icon that is less realistic than modern day superheros and one that is even more damaging because he is presented as an achievable reality. He is the kind of character that is writhe in old Westerns and films from a previous era, but is the kind of cliche macho man that Hollywood has been moving away from because of the damage it does to young men. One could retort that at least Leonardo DiCaprio's Rick Dalton showed some emotional depth, but any time he had any sign of emotion outside of a smirk it was for comedic effect to laugh at how emotional he was. The movie presents DiCaprio as the joke and a much less admirable character than Pitt's hard man.

Being a movie from a different era is also how the film presents women. Margot Robbie, who plays Sharon Tate, is severely under used in a movie that is a take on her tragic death. There are legitimately more shots of her arse than scenes where she talks. One could argue that this is in effort for capturing the late sixties feel of the movie, a tone which is captured perfectly through the film and Tarantino should be heavily praised for his musical choices and tonal decisions as he did a grand job of capturing the time. But, I would question are the more questionable attributes of the time period, such as the treatment of female actors, a road the movie needed to drive down. Tarantino's other tonal choices would have sufficed. Robbie's under use also comes down to a flaw in the structure of the movie: until the last twenty minutes, the movie feels aimless as it presents three peoples days without a reason or point. The first two thirds of the movie just presents these characters, that are in essence caricatures of people from a bygone era, living their life to an uneventful display. It seems Tarantino wanted to spend more time capturing the essence of the late sixties than giving the characters depth or a reason for being on our screens. At almost three hours the film seems to be packed with enough padding that could have been achieved by putting on a sixties playlist. However, the only thing that prevents the movie from being tiresome and a proper slog is the excellent performances from all the leads. Their comedic timing is on point and the charisma radiates through the screen. In addition, it looks like they all had a lot of fun making the film and that infectious enthusiasm radiates off them and makes you feel like you are having a good time. Specifically, the banter between DiCaprio and Pitt feels like watching two friends who have known each other for years, their relationship is sweet and funny.

This is a well acted and well directed movie, but it is a modern day Western film and encompasses all the positives and negatives that they did when they were last on our screens. Of course, the movie has an audience with the large box office being a key indicator that people are enjoying this kind of movie and are excited to watch a film that they can say ''they don't make it like this anymore.'' However, for its damaging portrayal of macho-men and women, this reviewer would prefer that this kind of movie had been left in the past.