Short Review: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
★★½
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood pleasantly surprised me with a finale involving Tarantino-esque gruesome hyper-violence in the service of righteous vengeance. As the “what if?” nature to the final sequence becomes apparent, there’s a strangely satisfying catharsis. We revel in seeing the would-be killers get their horrible, hilarious karmic justice at the hands of the goofy actor and stunt man we’d been following for over two hours.
Sadly, those previous two hours struggle to find direction by meandering between basically unrelated plot threads and relying on overlong sequences that often feel lazily dropped into the narrative at random. The result is a disjointed experience with a few good laughs, top-notch acting and directing, and a constant stream of pop culture homages.
Tarantino has the magical ability to make even the mundane mystifying. But the mesmerizing momentum present in his better movies is squeezed out of this movie by its hobbled pace (scenes are either too long, and what was once immersive becomes tedious) and jarring editing (or scenes are haphazardly peppered into the narrative with no concern for momentum or even relevance).
It’s also a real shame that Robbie’s outstanding talents are entirely wasted here.
