By this point, viewers know a few things about Booth that make him seem dangerous: He’s a war veteran he can leap great distances with ease and he may have killed his wife, as revealed in a jarringly comic way moments earlier in the movie. Relatively early in the film, Booth gets challenged to an on-set duel by Bruce Lee (Mike Moh). Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s take on violence is evident not only in its splatter-caked climax but also through its few other, and milder, showdowns. The undeniable magic of the movie, but also a nagging sense of strain and misdirection throughout, comes from its telling of a seductive lie: that the boundary between what happens in fiction and nonfiction is impermeable. The answer might be that Tarantino is out to absolve Hollywood, and himself, from grotesqueries, excesses, insensitivities, and lapses. What is the point of this ornate, ahistorical violence? It has also inspired wide speculation about Tarantino’s intent. This flip of history triggered cackles of glee in my theater. These would-be slaughterers end up being slaughtered by Dalton and his stuntman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who employ an attack dog, a flamethrower, and a myriad of household objects that get slammed into faces. Three Charles Manson followers-who, in reality, went on to kill five people, including the actress Sharon Tate-break in to the home of the washed-up actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio).
Then comes the end of the movie, and the end of the movie’s relative peacefulness. Two hours into the saga, some fan, sitting in some theater out there, is surely ready to accuse Tarantino of going soft this time.
But across most of its very charming and very languid run time, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood almost entirely forgoes gruesome outbursts in favor of chitchat, driving, and back-lot shenanigans. The ever-polarizing writer-director is famed for his stylish and shocking scenes of brutality, which he’s used for cartoonish thrills ( Kill Bill’s 89-person sword fight), queasy comedy ( Pulp Fiction’s accidental face-shooting), and morally weighted horror ( Django Unchained’s showcase of slaveholders’ cruelty). įor his ninth and supposedly penultimate film, Quentin Tarantino gave up violence. This article contains major spoilers for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.