"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" review

[SPOILERS ENSUE]

Welcome to 1969. That was the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, 40,000 hippies enjoyed peace, love and mud at Woodstock, and Charlie Manson's followers butchered seven people in the Hollywood hills. 

The party's over. The party of the 1960s, that is. Manson's massacre killed it. America would quickly lock its doors, stop picking up hitchhikers, and thank God they put Nixon in the White House. Kiss all that free love, fearlessness, creative experimentation, and risk-taking goodbye, folks. Get ready for the sell-out 70s. Ah. But what if the kill-crazy spree never happened? Let's make believe ...

And Tarantino does, natch. His "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" imagines that fairy tale alternate reality. In his version, the story has a bloody happy ending.

Before arriving at Quentin's counterfactual Cloudland, we dig into the lives of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio as the washed-up action star of a Western TV show cancelled in 1961) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt as a washed-up stuntman suspected of killing his wife). 

Dalton's agent, (Al Pacino) gives him a shot of ugly truth at Musso and Frank's. He's officially a has-been. And can now look forward to a thousand deaths as a guest-star bad guy. Either that, or Spaghetti Westerns.

Dalton swallows this bitter pill and feels sorry for himself. His stuntman sidekick (reduced to gofer status) can't even claim to be a has-been. What next? Who the hell knows? For now, their careers are dead in the water.

Their lack of action unfolds on the Sunset Strip in 1969. As  seen from inside Dalton's Cadillac. Which keeps driving back and forth on the Strip. These cats drive a lot. And talk a lot, too. This is a Tarantino movie, after all.

Lotsa flashbacks ensue during the drive. Booth and Dalton bullshitting through a TV interview on the set of Bounty Law. Booth holding a speargun on a boat while his soon-to-dead wife busts his balls. Booth busting Bruce Lee's balls and sparring on the set of The Green Hornet. 

Lotsa nostalgia porn outside the window. A lovingly, painstakingly recreated Sunset Strip. Every freeze-frame artfully calculated. Movie marquees, touting Krakatoa East of Java. Pandora's Box is there, though it was actually torn down in 1966. But this is the Tarantinoverse, so don't adjust your set. 

All that, and glimpses of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) in the early flower of Tate's career. Not many lines. But an amazing presence. Manson is the death angel. She's the life force.

Also glimpses of flower children. All female, all young. Digging through dumpsters. Singing creepy, culty songs. hitching rides. 

Booth picks one up, resists her jailbait charms, drops her off at Spahn Movie Ranch, then bullies his way into a shack to check on the owner, his old pal George Spahn. The Manson cultists gather, call him names. It starts to feel like a horror movie. A Children of the Corn vibe. A hippy knucklehead sticks a knife in Booth's tire. Booth busts his chops and makes him change the tire. One cultist rides off to alert Charles "Tex" Watson, who's guiding tourists on a horse trail. He gallops back. But Booth drives off in the nick of time. 

Then the film fast-forwards to August 8. Dalton is back from his latest Spaghetti Western with his new Italian wife. Having a free evening ahead, Booth tries an acid-laced cig. Then the four Mansonites take a drive down Cielo Drive. They get deflected when Dalton runs out screaming at their noisy muffler. Linda Kasabian drives off. The remaining three killers shift targets to the Hollywood types who taught them to kill in the first place.

After that, well. Bloody horror ensues. But a different bloody horror. This time, instead of helpless victims, Manson's hit squad runs into a crotch-chomping pit bull and two kickass badasses, including one with a handy flamethrower.

After that, presumably, the cops would pick up Charlie Manson. He'd get his 15 minutes of fame, but instead of haunting America's nightmares, he'd be a laughing stock. Without that nightmare, America would take more risks, have a little more guts. The 1960s burst of creativity would flare a little longer.

Isn't it pretty to think so?