This movie was released in Indonesia while I was away on holiday in August 2019 with my wife and when I returned home, it was only playing in limited theaters which would require a bit of effort that I did not want to put. And instead I chose to see other movies that were easier to get access to back then. As so happened, during my trip end of last year, the film was already in the inflight entertainment which was good for me as it had very long duration and definitely a good time killer. Well here's my brief opinion about the movie.
Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1969, story was focusing on a veteran Hollywood actor named Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio - Inception, Revenant etc) with his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt - Ad Astra, Ocean's Eleven etc) who always drove him around and accompanying him everywhere. With limited job offers, Rick was hoping to be cast by famous director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) who just moved next door to his house with his wife, actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie - Peter Rabbit, The Legend of Tarzan etc).
The story would revolve around the 3 main characters and their day to day lives which would culminate with an event that would shock the world.
End of Brief Story Line
I did not put too much story line as the story was indeed just like what I mentioned above. To be honest for more than 2 hours I had difficult time in understanding where the movie was heading. It really felt like the story was having no direction at all. I kept on hoping to see the connections between all the people involved but it was challenging. However, the last half hour or so, I finally realized what it was all about. The climax that would be very interesting to see.
Then I got shocked. The climax was totally unexpected and really blew my mind. I knew a bit about the history involving the Manson family but that climax scene I thought was kind of amazing. I guess it was the reason why this movie was so highly praised. Obviously people also liked the story telling but personally I did not really enjoy it cause I thought there were some scenes which were not really that interesting and had little impact on the main story. For a movie which had that short of climax, the duration to the build up was not something I really liked either, as I thought it could have been shorten a bit. Yes, it was a bit of inconsistent as I wanted to have time killer for my flight but I still thought it was too long. But then again, that's just my personal opinion as one of those shallow type of audience.
Now people also mentioned about the quality of the acting in here, with DiCaprio and Pitt the highlights of them all. I am not really sure how to differentiate between lead role and support role cause DiCaprio was nominated for Golden Globes in the lead role while Pitt won the award in support role even though I felt the two of them were in equal roles with similar screen time and both provided great performances and was a joy to see. But what I really liked about this movie was the originality which was rewarded with Best Screenplay award.
Aside from those 3 main characters, there were tons of additional supporting characters by well known artists such as Emile Hirsch, Timothy Olyphant, Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino, the late Luke Perry (in his last movie appearance) and many others. There were also quite a lot of real famous people portrayed in here like Bruce Lee or Steve McQueen. I believe the fame of Quentin Tarantino was a big magnet to several of Hollywood names to appear in this movie. And obviously with such title, it would not be complete if there were no such big names during that period of time. Btw, there was a fun mid end credit scene that was interesting to watch.
Anyway, I could see the appeal of this movie to the critics and audience who like the unconventional story telling by Tarantino (famous for making movies like Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and few others). But personally for me, aside from the last 20 minutes or so, the film felt directionless. It was indeed unique, though not an exceptionally interesting way that I could have loved. So it was no surprise that the movie won the best picture award for Golden Globes and I doubt it would stop there as likely it would get few other nominations for Academy Awards.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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