 What's up and welcome to One Take. My name is Gil and today we're talking about Quentin Tarantino's latest film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm going to start off with some high-level spoiler-free thoughts and then I'll give you a warning before I dive a little deeper into spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie yet, at that point you can tune out, watch the movie and then come back and see the rest of this review. So right off the bat I'll say I absolutely love this movie and that's not a surprise considering I've been a fan of every movie that Tarantino has done and that includes his half of Grindhouse, Death Proof. So I loved Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and one thing that was a little different about this movie than Tarantino's previous films for me is that going into Once Upon a Time in Hollywood I had very little idea what to expect. I watched the trailers, I read the synopsis so I knew the basics. You've got Leonardo DiCaprio playing Rick Dalton, a famous TV star who's kind of feeling a little washed up. You've got Rick Dalton hanging out with his stunt double Cliff Booth played by Brad Pitt and then you've got Sharon Tate played by Margot Robbie and somehow in the backdrop playing some kind of role in this movie you have the Manson family. But my question going in was what's the actual plot of this movie? What's the narrative arc that these characters go through? The funny thing is that when I sat down to watch this movie a pretty decent amount into the running time I was still asking myself those same questions and I realized that this movie is sort of in the vein of a dazed and confused, a super bad or even a pulp fiction where it's less about a particular narrative or plot and more about a sort of day in the life or days in the lives of a few interesting characters. So that being the case these characters being interesting and on a visceral level enjoyable to watch is very important and I'm happy to say that they are. Quentin Tarantino has once again done a great job of creating compelling characters where even when there isn't a super tight and super clear narrative it's just enjoyable to spend time in the world with these characters. Now having said that there are definitely moments of tension, there are definitely character progressions and there are certainly awesome hilarious and unpredictable payoffs throughout this movie that justify the nearly three hour running time. I think the movie is about two hours and 40 minutes. I should also say that this is one of Quentin Tarantino's funniest movies to date. He's had I think a pretty clear through line of comedy in all of his movies but this one more than any other Tarantino film to me prioritizes comedy over tension and violence and some of the other things that were used to in a Tarantino film. Now I'd say all those things that you're used to seeing from Quentin Tarantino are on display here but he's just sort of tweaked the dials a bit so comedy, character, come before plot, tension, conflict, violence and things like that. Now I will say there were a couple of moments like I said it is a nearly three hour running time and that can be challenging to sit through when there isn't a clear overarching plot. Now there was a moment or two where I started to get bored but every time that happened it very quickly became clear what the point of that scene is either it's progressing the character in some way it's leading to some interesting payoff or it's giving us some genuinely funny hilarious moment and the build-up was necessary for that. I'd also say all the performances in this film were great especially the three leads right Margot Robbie, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt but one part of Leonardo DiCaprio's performance that I'm still sort of questioning and this is on display in the trailer a bit right we know that his character is self-conscious feeling like he's sort of fallen from fame he's sort of washed up and with that Leonardo DiCaprio is trying to sell that by showing some nervousness and anxiety at times that felt a little over the top to me where he had where his character has a sort of a stutter while he speaks because he's so nervous but sometimes I couldn't quite tell what he was going for you know I found myself asking is Rick Dalton Leonardo DiCaprio's character supposed to be drunk in this scene or is he just nervous I'm not ready to say that it's a flaw in his performance it was just something I questioned didn't totally work for me in the moment and part of the reason I want to re-watch this movie to sort of see if that clicks a little bit better for me the second go-round I'd also say although you know eight or nine times out of ten everything that was set up in this movie paid off really well there were some things that didn't quite pay off for me and again I'm not ready to say they didn't work but it's something I want to re-watch and see if I can better understand why they're in the film but I'll talk a little bit more about that in spoilers so to recap before I get into spoilers this is a two hour and 40 minute film and it doesn't have a very clear narrative that's not to say things don't pay off but you will find yourself wondering where is this all going so you've really got to love the characters but if you love the characters and if you're in for the ride this is a fun movie with some great payoffs if you're a Tarantino fan I can't see you not enjoying this if you're not a Tarantino fan it might be a slog for you so you can kind of use that to decide whether or not you want to see this movie so I think that's everything I have to say before diving into spoilers so here's your five second warning if you haven't seen the movie yet turn this off and go see it five four three two one time for spoilers so I think this movie can be divvied up into kind of three parallel storylines you've got Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate going about her day bouncing from place to place dancing a lot watching her own movie on screen that's kind of one story you've got Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton his fall from fame his struggle to play a villainous role and really give it his all and sell it then you've got Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth again just kind of that's Rick Dalton's stuntman sort of going about his day and countering some interesting characters and I would say that off the bat Cliff Booth's storyline Brad Pitt's storyline is my favorite of the three and that is probably the storyline which is most Tarantino-esque it almost feels like Cliff is living in his own movie you know he's interacting with Rick Dalton's storyline here and there but then he goes off on his own and he's the only character that really encounters true life or death situations he's the only character that's encountering true violence and that might be why I found his storyline most enjoyable so for that reason I'm gonna kind of save his for last and talk about Sharon Tate and Rick Dalton first so first talking about Sharon Tate I would say that her character was a lot of fun to watch Margot Robbie made Sharon Tate somebody that's easy to fall in love with the only question I have is it didn't feel like her character had much of an arc actually I would say that really the only character that that to me felt like he had true progression and evolution as a character was Rick Dalton I thought that Cliff Booth Brad Pitt's character and Sharon Tate kind of encountered certain situations but as characters didn't really evolve by talking about Sharon Tate specifically it really felt like there wasn't much payoff to her story besides the fact that her storyline kind of served Cliff and Rick's story right she was somebody that they saved ultimately at the end of the movie so what was the purpose of Sharon Tate's storyline to me I think it's twofold one it's sort of a red herring because we know going into this movie that the Manson family in real life murdered Sharon Tate so the whole time we're watching her where enjoying her character we're falling in love with her character but we're worried that at some point she's going to be a victim that's one element of her story the other element is because we come to care for her character and we've been watching her character for you know two plus hours ultimately when Cliff Booth is able to triumph over the members of the Manson family that were sent to kill Sharon that victorious moment feels ever so slightly better for us as an audience because we know that this character Sharon Tate who we've been watching this whole time is saved so I think her storyline ultimately served as a red herring something to make us worry and just makes the victory at the end of this film a little bit sweeter then we have Rick Dalton's story Leonardo DiCaprio's story and I would say that his storyline at first feels like it's being played for laughs so for example you have the scene where he's forgetting his lines that scene was pretty funny even funnier is when he's back in his trailer giving himself a hard time yelling at himself in the mirror threatening to blow his own brains out you know he shouts into the mirror I'm literally gonna shoot your brains out I'm not kidding if you cannot get your lines right tomorrow what the hell is wrong with you that whole scene was pretty hilarious but there were true moments of emotion too when Rick has an encounter with 10 year old actress played by Julia Butters and by the way shout out to that actress she did a great job but in the scene where Rick is interacting with her and she's asking Rick about the book he's reading Rick starts to tell her about the character in that book and he starts to choke up when he tells her that this character is starting to feel useless because he's been injured and can't perform his cowboy duties as well as he used to when Rick got choked up I'm man enough to admit I also got a little bit choked up I really felt for his character on the flip side when he nails the scene as the villain in this movie when he when he uh when Julia Butters that actress tells Rick that he just did the best acting she's ever seen that moment of triumph I felt that right along with Leonardo DiCaprio's character so his character had lows and highs that I truly felt as part of the audience and like I said before I think his character is the only one that truly had a character arc where he had his fall from fame and he sort of rediscovered a love for acting and rediscovered the craft and the skill of acting you know he's he was drinking too much sort of falling apart and we kind of saw him pull it together the only thing I wish is that we got to live with that victory a little bit more than we did but right after he nails that scene we kind of go into that montage where we skip ahead six months you know we see him acting in Italy and then eventually coming back to the US so I like that storyline I enjoyed that storyline but the one I really enjoyed it like I said earlier and the storyline which I thought was the most Tarantino-esque of the three Brad Pitt's character of Cliff Booth so a few things I want to say that I really enjoyed here number one when his storyline is just sort of ramping up we see his interactions with the hippie girl where she is on the side of the road asking for a lift but he's going the other way that non-verbal communication the two or three scenes where they're communicating totally non-verbally was just was just fun to watch finding the creative ways that Tarantino found to have them communicate you know at first it's just a smile a wave a wink and then it starts to be more hand gestures at one point she's upset that Cliff is going the opposite way won't be able to give her a lift and she does that exaggerated you know frown and tear that was just a lot of fun to watch and then we have the fight between Brad Pitt and Bruce Lee which I believe was an imagined fight I interpreted that whole sequence to be Cliff imagining what would happen if he were able to get on set and join Rick for his latest role but that whole scene where Cliff is fighting Bruce Lee was just hilarious two moments I'll shout out are after Bruce is able to best Cliff in their first round and not cliff to the ground when Bruce goes to attack him again and goes in for another kind of jump kick and Cliff sort of nonchalantly just grabs him and throws him against a car hilarious also hilarious is Bruce Lee is continuously making those sort of kung fu noises you know and then at a certain point Brad Pitt kind of does the same thing but a little bit more half hearted right he sort of goes oh sort of out of the side of his mouth that whole scene was hilarious and then we get to the scene where Cliff is visiting a spawn ranch where the Manson family has sort of taken over there's a lot of tension in that scene because a from history we know that the Manson family are murderers so we don't know if Brad Pitt is going to make it out of that scene unscathed and even if you didn't go in knowing that history that whole family is acting super weird following Cliff Brad Pitt's character around so you start to feel a little bit unsafe for him a little bit worried for him but the best part is that Cliff handles everything totally nonchalantly great example of this is when he wants to go into the house where he knows that George lives that's the owner of the ranch and Cliff is obviously worried it doesn't really seem like George would just allow a bunch of hippies to come live on his ranch so Cliff wants to go talk to him and everyone keeps telling him you can't talk to George now this is nap time you can't bother him so as an audience we're starting to wonder is George kidnapped is he dead what the hell is going on here but over and over again all these characters are telling Cliff you can't go in there and eventually he just turns to them and says you know what I think I'm gonna go in anyway and hey maybe he'll be awake you never know and the way he just insists on going into the house even when Dakota Fanning's character squeaky tells him you can't come in now and Cliff says I'm going to tell you right now I'm coming in and this and he points to the screen door not going to stop me so I fell in love with his character in this scene the way he's able to just confidently handle whatever bizarre situation he finds himself in is just awesome and then of course in that scene when he's finally ready to leave and he finds a knife sticking out of his tire he turns and he sees a hippie laughing at him so he knows that that's the hippie who stabbed his tire and he just turns to him and says you're fixing this and when he refuses he beats the crap out of him and it's just that is one of those moments I mentioned earlier of extreme tension is he going to get out of here safe and not only does he get out of there safe but on the way out he beats the crap out of one of these weirdos who is creating this unsafe situation to begin with so extreme tension and then awesome hilarious satisfying payoff I should also say here I was reading some articles that PETA was complaining about this movie saying it's going to create an irrational fear of pit bulls because Cliff Booth's pit bull in this movie has some pretty violent moments but I'll say this movie did not make me afraid of pit bulls but it did rekindle a hatred of hippies I left this movie really hating hippies so if PETA is looking out for pit bulls hopefully somebody is looking out for the poor hippies out there and then we've got to talk about the incredible ending so the whole movie we're counting down mentally to when these storylines are going to collide we know the Manson family is out there we know they're going to become murderers we know they're going to go after Sharon Tate and we're just waiting for that collision to happen at a certain point this becomes very explicit when the narrator Kurt Russell cuts in and starts telling us 10 a.m. 11 a.m. 10 p.m. literally telling us what time it is so we're progressing throughout the day the clock is ticking at a certain point those goddamn hippies are going to show up to kill Sharon Tate and then just before they do we have one of in my opinion the best depictions of drug use that I've seen because I feel like a lot of movies have a tendency a lot of all rated comedies especially will have a scene where characters do acid or some other hallucinogenic drug and it's just an over the top scene of them oh look at my fingers wow what's going on and maybe there'll be some weird special effects but here it's super subtle Brad Pitt smokes a acid dipped cigarette and just as he handles everything else in a very nonchalant way he handles being high out of his mind also in a totally calm manner he basically just moves his fingers and goes whoa and and then just says aloud the train has left the station so great depiction of drug use I found that hilarious and then so the tension that's been building up throughout the movie where we're waiting for the Manson family to show up boom they show up they bust into the house and hold the gun to Brad Pitt we're confident in Cliff Booth's ability to handle a situation like this but now he's high out of his mind so there's a genuine concern for his character so it's very uncomfortable to and then Brad Pitt clicks sends his dog after Tex who's been holding the gun to his face and we see those hippies get torn apart by the dog beat up by Cliff and hilariously one of them torched by Rick Dalton who apparently kept his flamethrower prop from the World War II movie that we know he was in established earlier in the movie so that whole scene was hilarious and incredible release of tension where we're worried about these characters and was just a great climax to this film a couple of things to point out about this scene one this is one of the few happy endings we've gotten in a Tarantino film it's very rare for all of the main characters to survive a Tarantino movie so this total happy ending where both Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth survive and not only do they survive but Rick Dalton it meets Roman Polanski which he wanted to happen the whole movie because that's a potential major opportunity to sort of rekindle his his career this happy ending it feels like it couldn't have happened in an earlier Tarantino film because we've now watched eight movies from Quentin Tarantino where it's very common for main characters to die so because we've been trained to fall in love with characters only to watch them get killed we can watch this scene where the hippies show up at Rick Dalton's house where they hold a gun to Cliff Booth we can watch that scene and have genuine concern for these two main characters because it's been established by Tarantino in previous films that nobody is safe so at least for me watching that scene I was so sure Brad Pitt's character was going to be killed and Tarantino knew that because at a certain point Cliff Booth Brad Pitt's character falls to the ground and we don't see him again for a few minutes the next time we see him he's lying there the camera's on his face the camera pans over to his fingers and we see his finger twitching and we breathe a sigh of relief that he is still alive so that's just part of how Quentin Tarantino was able to play with tension in this scene and I'll also say not only is there tension because we're genuinely concerned for the characters because it's been established in previous Tarantino films that they might die but on top of that the Manson family was real the characters we saw in this movie were real and in reality they killed Sharon Tate and in this movie they need to get through Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth to get to Sharon Tate so there are several reasons to have genuine concern for these characters so Tarantino masterfully plays with all that to create tension play with that tension and ultimately give us just incredible reliefs and an awesome happy joyous ending so overall clearly I love this movie I love the way we just had a great time hanging out with these characters you're waiting for everything to collide and when it does it is glorious and gloriously violent a couple of other random thoughts that I had watching this movie number one I think Quentin Tarantino's fascination with feet is at this point it's sort of become a running joke there's a moment in this movie where when Cliff Booth finally picks up the hitchhiking hippie girl the moment she got in the car I thought to myself all right I guess I should be prepared to see her feet because seconds later she takes her shoes off shoves her feet against the front window of the car directly in front of the camera and it feels like at this point Quentin Tarantino is just doing that because we expect him to do it and it's sort of just a running joke the other thing I'll point out is the whole final sequence of Rick Dalton Cliff Booth beating the hell out of these hippies sort of feels like Quentin Tarantino's response to his critics because when those hippies are in the car sort of plotting what they're about to do part of why they decide to attack Rick Dalton is one of the hippies points out that hey Rick is a TV star and all these Hollywood TV stars and movie stars they're the ones who told us that violence is okay by constantly putting it on display on TV and in movies so we should teach them a lesson for for desensitizing us to violence so in a way in that moment it sort of felt like those hippies were the mouthpiece for all the critics that have come out against Tarantino for his violence and I guess Tarantino's response to them is violently destroying them so I just I just thought that was funny is sort of an uh just an added meta element to that whole sequence like I've said and like I'll say again I was a huge fan of this movie I thought it was funny I thought it was entertaining I love these characters I would love to see more of these characters though I doubt we ever will except for maybe in deleted scenes I especially loved in this movie the way that like I said before there's this tension where you know at some point these storylines are going to collide and when they do it's awesome it was one of the first happy endings that we've gotten from Tarantino I mean he's always had happy endings but but they're always tainted with some other dark side so inglorious bastards we kill Hitler but several of the main characters died along with him so we get these happy endings but this is the first one that that to me was pure our main characters all survived Rick Dalton got what he wanted history is once again rewritten Sharon Tate a character we grow to love throughout this movie gets to live and it's just an awesome time nearly three hours long and I was and through all the entire time and just had a great time at the theater so I sincerely hope that Tarantino is going to make more than 10 films he's consistently said he's going to retire after 10 so we're going to get at least one more it might be a Star Trek movie it might be something else whatever it is obviously I'll be in the theater to watch it and I think that's all I have to say about once upon a time in Hollywood so thank you for watching and if you enjoyed this video make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the little bell icon so you get notifications whenever we release more videos like this one