Somewhere in this boondoggle is the core of a great idea; namely, the idea of a wealthy Western/action hero at the tail end of his career and his stunt double, the man who did all the dirty work to make him famous but who lives a much less glamorous and far more modest lifestyle coming to terms with the end of their relationship. And while the movie does touch on this idea, it's only about 20% of the screen time of this bloated film.

Instead, what we get are lengthy scenes that contribute nothing to the central plot and just go on forever. For example, when Brad Pitt drops a hitchhiker at Spahn Ranch and asks to see George Spahn, the scene takes 15 minutes from the time he approaches the door and the time he meets with Spahn. And the scene contributes nothing to the film in any meaningful way.

Another scene involves a lengthy scene of Cliff acting in a Western pilot that eats up another 10 minutes. It's extremely well filmed but in the end the length is not justified by the contribution of the scene to the movie.

What likely happened is that Tarantino figured if he could shoot enough scenes that he could eventually put them together into a coherent film and he ultimately failed. The film goes nowhere and even the climax is a let down since the dog is the one who takes down most of the villains, not the heroes.

There's probably no one better than QT to have made a film about Hollywood's 1960s era however he just seems to have given into his worst impulses of putting his own voice in characters mouths, name checking previous Hollywood players and reciting encyclopedic facts about film history which unfortunately does not add up to a quality film, just a ridiculously long one.