Hobbs and Shaw (4/5 Stars)

I have never had the opportunity to admit this in my movie review blog, but I have actually seen several of the Fast & Furious movies. I forget exactly which ones, but it hardly matters. They are all the same. Alpha males, fast cars, good-looking women. Oh and family, every single Fast & Furious movie is about family.

You need to be a good sport to watch a Fast & Furious movie. They are stupid, but if you play their game, well the stupid works. In this movie, a kidnapping takes place in a skyscraper. The bad guys bust through the window about fifty stories up and haul off a woman down the side of the building using very long ropes. Shaw decides to take the elevator down. Hobbs decides to jump out the window. His plan is to use gravity to catch up on the escaping bad guys heading down the ropes, to grab a hold of one to stop his fall, punch him in the face, and then jump to the next bad guy etc. This plan is stupid but it works. One must lend a lot of credit to the actors, in particular Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who is one of the best at keeping it straight in the face of endless absurdities.

This movie is shameless. It stars a few of the newer stars of the Fast & Furious movies, Jason Statham (“Shaw”) and Dwayne Johnson (“Hobbs”) and adds the one and only Idris Elba (“Black Superman”) and a kick ass lady named Vanessa Kirby. The bad guy introduces himself as “Bad Guy”. He has a plan to spread a super-virus that will wipe out most of the world in an attempt to weed out the weak and kickstart human evolution. One of the better scenes involves a scientist explaining a real easy way to stop the plot (kill one person who is the room) and a really really hard way to stop the plot (infiltrate the bad guys lair in the middle of an army base in a completely different country within 12 hours). The World is at stake. The first option is not seriously considered. Another great scene involves a car mechanic trying to repair a complex biological contraption with no training and no special equipment while Hobbs and Shaw yell at him to hurry up. Amazingly, the yelling helps and the car mechanic gets the contraption to work. Shameless. During the climatic battle, our guys Hobbs and Shaw realize that the way to beat the bad guy is to work together as a team. Shameless, shameless, shameless.

The most enjoyably shameless part of these movies is the Fast & Furious physics. Cars can’t do this shit. You can’t shoot people from the cab of a jeep while its doing a barrel roll, but there it is up on the screen proving your sense of reality and logic wrong. The director of the movie is David Leitch, who is more of a stunt coordinator that has been converted into a director. His one previous movie  was the very good Deadpool 2. You can tell because he fills out the supporting cast with actors from that movie: see Eddie Marsan, Ryan Reynolds, and Rob Delaney. I’m beginning to like the idea of stunt coordinators becoming directors. The other good movie this year that was directed by a stunt coordinator was John Wick 3. The fight scenes were of a higher caliber in John Wick 3, however, this movie however is funnier. The jokes are a bit clunky in the first half of the movie, but as everyone settles in, they start coming out smoother. Then Kevin Hart shows up and is hilarious for about forty seconds.

Let me give you a test: The movie relocates to Samoa for its third act for no particular story reason. The only conceivable reason it happens is to provide an excuse to see Dwayne Johnson dress in traditional Samoan warrior club and have a traditional Samoan brawl with a traditional Samoan warrior club. Before the climatic battle, The Rock stands on a bluff and with a totally straight face states, “I can’t believe this is where we’re going to save The World.” If that makes you chuckle, I’ve got a direct commercial flight from Moscow to Samoa to sell you.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (5/5 Stars)

Whenever some crazy person does some horrible thing in the world, deranged manifestos from the extremes of society are festooned upon us by a media exploiting our collective morbid curiosity. The dead are victimized twice. First they are robbed of their live, then their lives are forever connected and largely overshadowed by the attention spent on the perpetrators. Sharon Tate is a perfect example. This utterly blameless young woman was horrifically murdered by the Manson cult. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood uses this real event from 1969 Hollywood as its reason for being. However, upon exiting the theater, you may notice that during the course of the movie, you have learned far more about Sharon Tate then Charles Manson. Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino to his great credit has flipped the murders on their head. He showers attention on the victims and treats the perpetrator dismissively. This is too my great relief. I was very worried coming into this movie about what Tarantino would do with the material given that Roman Polanski was still alive. Coming out of the movie theater, I can marvel at the deft way Tarantino handled it all.

Reappearing in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood from Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained are Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt respectively. Tarantino writes them some tailor-made roles. Leonardo Dicarprio plays Rick Dalton, former star of Bounty Law, on the downward trajectory of his show business career (in an early scene, he gets presented the ‘opportunity’ to move to Italy and star in westerns over there). Brad Pitt plays Rick Dalton’s former stunt double, Cliff Booth. Cliff may or may not have been involved in the tragic death of his wife in the style of Natalie Wood’s mysterious fate. Nobody can prove whether or not Cliff did what and Tarantino makes it purposefully ambiguous. Enough people think Cliff might have to the point where he no longer is a working man (he also got into a fist fight with Bruce Lee). He spends his days doing odd jobs for Rick and feeding his bulldog.

Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth are completely fictional. It is a testament to the movie that we become highly invested in them while waiting for the real occurrences to occur in the last half hour of an almost three hour movie. It must be noted that Brad Pitt at 55 years old still has a six-pack of abs. It’s absurd. While Leo plays worn and tragic, a type of role he has become very good at.

As a very present character is Hollywood itself. The 1969 production value, the neon details, the cars, the Playboy mansion, the year round sun. Most of all, that feel of innocence before those dirty hippies ruined the party and gave the sixties their hangover.

I very much don’t want to ruin this movie for you. If you don’t know anything about it, I think you should do some historical homework and then listen to nothing else. You should know something about the Manson murdes. Read the Wikipedia article. Then watch this movie. You will not be disappointed.

Would you believe me if I told you that this is Tarantino least vulgar and arguably least violent movie. It is on the same violence level of pre-Kill Bill. As far as cursing is concerning, not that much at all really. It’s kind of refreshing. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is top-tier Tarantino. Put it up there with Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained. Highly recommended.