Before the premiere in Cannes in May, Quentin Tarantino went with a wish that we who saw the film in advance would reveal too much of the action. At the press show itself, a representative of the festival read the same message. Which is a bit bigger than a possible spoiler. But it gets its explanation. More about it further down.

It is the end of the 60's and Leo DiCaprio plays TV western star Rick Dalton who after a few decades at the top has now ended up easy on the decis and Brad Pitt makes his eternal polisher and stuntman Cliff Booth. We have to follow them back and forth in time between the successes of the 1950s and the lush cinematic present, and in a side story they are drawn ever closer to the tragic time when the Charlie Manson gang goes to Roman Polanski's villa in Beverly Hills and murders Sharon Tate, the actress who was pregnant with Polanski's children. Tarantino's script places Rick Dalton's house right next to Polanski's, and so to speak, puts us on the first parquet, awaiting the vicious act.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is packed with American actors who rave about movie and TV history, like Al Pacino, Lena Dunham, Kurt Russell, Luke Perry and many more. When Tarantino shouts, you answer. But even more fun is to see extinguishing stars come to life again. At least as fun as it was to see Povel Ramel and Tage Danielsson strolling around in Monica Z, it's to see old car hunk Steve McQueen at a pool party or watch Bruce Lee karate dance around and talk about his hands as "deadly weapons".
Tarantino is in his essence here, sprinkling with movie references as if there was no tomorrow.
If you are not a movie geek you will miss many of the points.

But okay, a lot of it is cinematic bling-bling that doesn't add much to the action. In that respect, the plot is not near the ingenious script building in Inglourious basterds or Pulp fiction but at least many journeys nicer than twenty The hateful eight.

For the most part, it is an unusually lavish bromance where young women are stylish to look at, where the camera moves from bottom to top, along long bare legs, while men smoke, fight and drive the action forward. Hard to be so funny, but this is also supposed to be a reflection of a b-movie, as they looked when it happened.

Undoubtedly a neat and tight creation that, in effect, bubbles out of love for film history, which drives itself, with flabby machoism - while still admiring and wanting to shake paw with it. Yes, it is tricky to decide what is what, better to just follow Uncle Quentin as he takes us by the hand and leads us on a colorful journey through his nostalgic picture of California in the late 1960s.

The title already hints that it is a fairy tale, but it is not until the end that you fully understand the scope of the fairy tale-inspired title, and on the way there is still smart, cunning, and in a sequence utterly violent, at pure splatter level actually (but that's only a fraction of the two-hour and 41-minute movie). It is movie entertainment with gigantic F, and with an ending that still legitimizes said overwhelm and in fact even that anxious appeal that we should not reveal too much of the action.

In most cases, everything unsettling about spoilers is most tiring, but there are still some twists in movie history that should not be revealed (at least not in detail), such as the snooping shock of The crying game, as the inverted ghost situation in The Others - and as the the fine finale of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where the anti-heroes Rick and Cliff unconsciously become real heroes, and also change the course of history.