In 2005 pop culture directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino began collaboration on a project called Grindhouse, a ‘double feature’ with fake trailers homage to the bloodthirsty (and largely unreleased in the UK) exploitation films of the 1970s.
Clocking in at over three hours, Grindhouse was unleashed in America earlier this year and failed to do good business. As such we now get the version originally intended for the non English language speaking international release, two separate movies with previously cut footage reinstated.
Tarantino’s Death Proof (the one with the car) goes first and Rodriguez’s Planet Terror (the one with the chick with a machine gun instead of a leg) will be released some time in the near future.
Death Proof focuses on Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a sociopath who uses his reinforced car as a murder weapon. When he attempts to terrorise a group of foxy ladies dressed like the cast of the High School Musical, they turn things around and deliver Mike a little rough and tumble of their own.
They say:
Cinematical: "Death Proof is, at heart, a movie about sexy ladies and the scar-marked aging ex-stuntman who wants them all dead."
Variety: "It's so well executed that it bears repeat scrutiny very well."
We say:
Death Proof is not a true grindhouse movie. While it replicates the grindhouse feel with dialogue jumps and ‘scratchy film’, it never travels fully down that road. Tarantino has merely used grindhouse as a jump off point to create a thumping movie experience akin to a headache without the pain.
You may have heard the rumours and it’s true, Death Proof does sport a lot of dialogue. The ladies (90% of the cast) happily gossip on about nothing in particular for many of the early scenes.
You might revel in their witty wordplay and how it builds a cunningly fragmented narrative tempo, or you might just take a nap. As usual, QT’s work is an object lesson in giving the audience what they want in a way they don’t expect – and this is what makes Death Proof such a bona fide classic.
The cast is bold and sexy. The formidable Zoe Bell is actually a real life stuntwoman playing herself, while Russell’s oily turn as the psycho brings hilarious justice to Tarantino’s finest character creation since Jules in Pulp Fiction.
As for car action, try two Dodge monsters in a retro climax to jar your eyeballs loose. We can't think of a bigger dogfight in the last thirty years. Their rasping bonnets blast through our sanitised world of airbags and biofuel as paradoxically fresh as a daisy.
Be aware that if you want to see Planet Terror and Death Proof together - the full Grindhouse package complete with fake trailers for films such as ‘Machete’ and ‘Werewolf Women of the SS’ featuring Nicholas Cage as Dr Fu Manchu - then you will have to wait for the DVD release. While this is initially annoying, because of the restored footage we actually get to see more of both movies than the Americans did. QT has been vocal about reinstating at least thirty minutes of Death Proof he had to ditch in the cutting room for Grindhouse. This is now his complete version, no compromise.
Nonetheless before you commit to our promise of a five star cinematic experience, be warned that not everyone will like this bizarre world of girlie chat and twisted metal pile ups. To be infuriatingly ambiguous, you’ve got to be in the mood.
Think back to when Kill Bill Vol 2 was released in 2004 because the same tenet applies. There is no middle ground here, you will either love Death Proof or hate it. We think it kills.
CAST
Kurt Russell
Rosario Dawson
Zoe Bell
Vanessa Ferlito
DIRECTOR
Quentin Tarantino
TIME
114 mins
POSTED...
Tue 18 Sep 2007 at 10:46pm
