Reviews of Death Proof
Displaying all 6 reviews
Patrick
27Apr10
I lost interest in Tarintino’s films a few years ago, they seemed clichéd and lacking a new edge. However, I thought I would give him a second chance and I had some time to kill so I rented Deathproof. How can I best describe this film… this film is Tarintino wanking himself off, it’s self-indulgent to the max, but I like it! If it is a wank, it is a good wank and one to be proud of.
Its like walking into a Burger King and ordering the most unhealthy thing there, not because you are hungry but because you are bored, and after it you feel so happy you have eaten it that you need to blow bubbles with some bubble gum to give expression to just how happy you are. In fact you might be so satisfied with it you may want to blow bubbles from your ass, and the sound they will make is of course… POP!.
hubertguillaud
20Apr10
Exercice de style déjanté et paresseux – 26/10/2009
Cet hommage aux séries Z, déjanté, tant dans la forme que le fond, est un objet jubilatoire qui puise ses racines dans la sous-culture populaire américaine. Reste que l’objet du culte demeure tout de même l’objet filmique, et que le coktail bagnoles, cascades et gonzesses n’a pas pour objectif d’aller plus haut que son modèle. Un exercice de style n’est aussi qu’un exercice de style. Les cadrages déglinguées et les poursuites euphorisantes le disputent avec de longues scènes de bavardage. Une parodie de la médiocrité aura quoiqu’il en soit du mal à la dépasser.
- Currently 1.0/5 Stars.
angelicidea
15Sep09
Oh dear, what was Tarantino thinking? I am a fan of his style of remixing all sorts of films/styles/themes, but this has to be the low point of his directing career. The dialogues are cringeworthy and boring. Not to mention that they do not sound like “girlie talk”. What works in Reservoir Dogs does not work here – even though he uses similar techniques (to especially the opening scene about “Like a Virgin”). I assume the one-dimensional characters were intentional and there is no problem with that, if the plot and/or the dialogues compensate for that. No sign of the usual playfulness and wit. Had it been a short, I would have enjoyed it a lot, but the thrill of the last half an hour cannot erase the torture of the first one and a half. Final observation: he seems to have been dedicating entire films to revenge lately, which has always been present throughout his career (was he bullied as a child?). All in all this is a real shocker and not in a good sense. And what is it with the foot-fetish, anyway?
- Currently 1.0/5 Stars.
MovieFreak4702
30Aug09
Death Proof is an interesting sort of film. I’ve seen it three or four times since the original theatrical release, and I’ve gotta say that while I better understand the point of the film and why Tarantino made the decisions he did, I still can’t say that I agree with them. This film plays out, in the first half at least, as a really great, almost suspense-filled ride with style to boot. However, after the first car crash scene, the film becomes this way-out-of-left-field chick flick/cautionary tale that in my opinion is not in any warranted by the first half of the film. I’m a huge Tarantino fan, the man is the reason that I love movies in the first place, but Death Proof was a serious side-step in an almost flawless track record. I like the idea of making the audience examine the film itself by going against the conventions of the genre, but in all honesty this particular film just doesn’t work for me. I felt betrayed when I saw that the posters said “Kurt Russell is Death Proof”, and then I was let down by it.
- Currently 2.0/5 Stars.
Todd Kushigemachi
8Jul09
(Originally written April 13, 2007)
Grindhouse is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable movie experiences I have had in a long time. Similar to the way in which Borat took the medium of film and perverted it for the masses in a refreshing way, directors Rodriguez and Tarantino have created a film that captures the joy of going to the movies. This double feature featuring two films, Planet Terror and Death Proof, is a ride that dwells in the carnal pleasures of blood, skin, and cars.
While Rodriguez’s movie is absolute fun, Quentin Tarantino’s segment, entitled Death Proof, is the more mature work of the two. It is very unlikely that Planet Terror would stand up on its on as a movie while Death Proof is another film worthy of writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s impressive body of work. Tarantino relies less on shock value compared to Rodriguez and actually has, unexpectedly, directed one of his least violent works. Tarantino makes it seem as if the film is going to be about a group of models, but this changes with a plot twist that is equally exhilarating and disturbing. After this plot twist, the movie turns out to be about strong women seeking revenge.
Kurt Russell plays Stuntman Mike, a man who spends time telling stories in bars about the stunt work he once did for the movies, how he worked for great stars but is still obscure and unrecognizable. He is a lone man, rejected for his ugly scarred face. He loves to take out the frustrations of rejection out on young females by terrorizing and murdering them.
Although Russell has the standout performance in the film with his macho weariness, the protagonists are young women in the movie business played by Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms and Zoe Bell. The dialogue amongst these central characters is evidence of Taratino’s talent as a writer. Tarantino’s films are known for their characters having everyday conversations that frequently reference pop culture, and Death Proof is no exception. There is a scene in which the protagonists are talking in a restaurant, and the camera movies around the table as they talk about cult car movies like Vanishing Point and their personal lives. While the crooks in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs debated Madonna and the tradition of tipping a waiter, these girls talk about Pretty in Pink and their sex lives. Many may find these scenes unimportant or downright boring, but they establish small details that later occur in the film including the importance of a woman having a loaded gun. Tarantino’s dialogue is becoming less stylized as he begins to better emulate conversations that normal people have. This humanity of the dialogue is refreshing after the senseless gore of Planet Terror.
The film climaxes in an exciting car chase scene that pits one stuntman against two stuntwomen, a scene created with absolutely no computer-generated images. The action scenes do not have nearly the same amount of blood or gore as Rodriguez’s segment, but they are motivated by the fact that the audience actually establishes an understanding of the characters.
Tarantino’s segment is characterized by many of his trademarks. He is once again putting females into empowering roles, similar to what he did with the Bride’s character in Kill Bill. There is the infamous trunk shot with the characters actually looking at the engine of the car instead of looking at a tied-up police officer as the lead characters did in Reservoir Dogs. The soundtrack is a masterpiece on its own, composed of obscure pieces of pop music that establish the mood of this film. Tarantino, as he usually does, has subtle references to his own films. When Rosario Dawson talks about her relations with the director of the movie for which she is currently doing makeup, she mentions that she gave him a foot massage, hearkening back to Tarantino’s own film Pulp Fiction in which the character Marcellus Wallace is rumored to have killed a man for giving his wife a foot massage.
Quentin Taratino shows maturity as a writer with each progressing work he produces. His first film Reservoir Dogs was a great introduction to his talent, but the film wandered when it attempted to delve into the motivations of the characters with flashbacks. Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown saw Tarantino writing about greater ideas such as redemption. Kill Bill saw him as a master of cinema as entertainment, simultaneously philosophical and exhilarating. With Death Proof, Tarantino shows restraint in a movie that could have been bloodier. In reality, many might complain that this film was not interesting and that the dialogue was excessive. However, Tarantino stayed truer to the 1970 grindhouse tradition in comparison to Rodriguez by working with a minimal budget to create an exploitation work that does not impress with its indulgence but with its genuine sense of style.
- Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
jaredmobarak
8Jun09
review with Planet Terror:
A double-bill, Rodriguez and Tarantino—two of the most entertaining directors working today—faux trailers, and a 70’s pulp aesthetic…can a movie of this magnitude ever live up to the almost Godlike expectations for it? Generally there is no way the real thing can meet the hype, but with the amount of talent and creativity involved here, how could Grindhouse be anything but a masterpiece? Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino know their genres and are never afraid to mix in a little violence or camp to spice up their art. We have the master of innovation and craft (what film by Rodriguez doesn’t contain his name in the credits at least ten times?) and the genius of words and film history chic (Tarantino could sell a film even he it contained two people in a room talking for two hours with a look matching the best of any past stylistic mode). It feels like Christmas when you can get a film by either director in a given year, but when you put them together for an all-out blitz on the senses you get the most entertaining theatre-going experience in years.
Overall the film was technically perfect. These guys set out to recreate the grindhouse experience of yesteryear with their pulp films going back to back complete with old-school advertisements, titlecards, and trailers for even more outrageous genre flicks as an intermission. Each segment was aged in post-production to make it look as though the film was thrown around and lost for the past thirty years, slowly decomposing in unsafe archiving conditions. The scratches and the film speed errors are a work of art in themselves as they never get distracting or go overboard, but instead look like normal decay for a no-budget, B-movie of this sort. Each had its moments, but I will give the edge to Rodriguez on effectiveness and seamless integration. While Tarantino succeeded with his moments of hitches/rewinded replayed seconds, his use of the “missing reel” ended up feeling like a gimmick rather than a reality. It was just a way for him to not show us a moment that had been building up for a while with the scene previous ending smoothly and the scene after starting right up. Rodriguez, on-the-other-hand, played it cool by burning the filmstock right before the moment of lost material. Rather than the reel being missing, it made it seem destroyed; the cut from the card to a burning building brings laughter at missing a key plot point instead of disappointment from being unable to watch what could have been a crucial motivating factor for what the killer does next in Tarantino’s half.
As for the films themselves, we are treated to two distinct genres, the zombie/horror and the slasher/thriller. Rodriguez’s Planet Terror truly brought back the spirit and look of an old camp-infused shocker. We have a government-involved release of a toxin, which kills and then brings back to life those exposed, making them hunger live flesh. We have the hard-edged sheriff (played to perfection by the underused Michael Biehn), the token victims (Nicky Katt is hilarious as the hospital’s first exposure to the epidemic), the supporting players (a nice intercut storyline with the gorgeous Marley Shelton and her husband Josh Brolin who really got the mood of his character and hit it out of the park—loved the thermometer), and our protagonists doing whatever it takes in the name of love to survive (a rediscovered Rose McGowan—who is great both here and in Tarantino’s part, showing some real emotion in the midst of absurd character evolution—and probably the best acting in the whole piece from Freddy Rodriguez). We get blood and goo, face-melting, limb-chopping, flesh-eating, blood filled balloon people splattering against windshields and survivors as they are mowed down, and a genital obsessed Naveen Andrews with the best comic relief of the night. There is gore, there is sex, and there are scares mixed with laugh-out-loud craziness. Robert Rodriguez knew what he was doing and he upped the ante wherever he could, making Planet Terror a flawless piece of cinema trash.
As for Tarantino’s Death Proof, I was ready to be amazed. The credit sequence was fabulous as the titles overlaid static motion shots, looking out the windshield of a car, a woman’s feet on the dashboard. This was looking to be pure 70’s and I couldn’t wait to get going. We are introduced to a trio of women out cruising the bar scene, talking about sex and love and whatever else, naturally and realistically, when we get the foreboding glimpse of the deathproof car, complete with skull and crossbones. The tension rises when the killer is finally introduced and the dialogue is sharp, witty, and twisted in just the right way. Credit Tarantino for giving us one of the best driving sequences ever as the car holding the girls (playing air-drums to a classic rock diamond in the rough) rapidly moves into a confrontation with the killer’s vehicular weapon. The words between our killer, delivered with perfect matter-of-factness by Kurt Russell to Rose McGowan, is worth seeing the film segment as a whole, not to mention the multi-angle crash coming next. My adrenaline was up, carnage was fresh on the screen, and it was time for act two to bring the level up even more. Unfortunately this is where Death Proof falls apart. All the build up we just experienced ends up resetting as we go through the motions again: a new group of women driving and talking, eventually to meet up with our killer. This sequence might have been better than the first, except it never got the chance because all I could think was “didn’t I just sit through this a moment ago?” Granted, the final car chase is amazing, two cars playing out the roles of killer and victim running from each other, and losing each other along the way, like any of the best slasher films, however, I was bored to tears by the monotonous set-up, having to sit through another set of women being introduced. How can it be effective if after finally seeing some action from an amazing Russell performance, we don’t get to see him for the next thirty minutes? All the suspense is gone by the time he comes back, and I found myself not quite caring anymore (Although Russell does up the camp, when the tables are turned, at the finish for some brilliant laughs). Also, mention needs to be made about Zoe Bell’s performance. While a bit stilted, she was fantastic having never acted before. Having a stuntwoman be the actress was a great choice because the car chase would have been nothing without the camera never leaving her as she held on for dear life on the hood of the car.
So, overall, the experience at the Grindhouse was fantastic. Rodriguez was on fire with both Planet Terror and his faux trailer Machete, (I can’t wait for that one if the rumors are true and a film will be made from the footage), and Tarantino knew the score if he didn’t quite know how to pace his piece correctly. The acting is top-notch, displaying some talent in roles that would have been filled by no-name D-list actors during the real era that is being harkened back to. I even loved the fact that characters reoccurred throughout, even if that gimmick went a bit too far having Biehn’s and Jordan Ladd’s roles reprised in the trailers as well. As for those trailers: pure unadulterated fun. Rob Zombie and Eli Roth did fantastic jobs at putting the craziest ideas they had on screen knowing they didn’t have to coherently put them together, as trailers just show disparate glimpses anyways. Biggest laughs of the night, though, go to Edgar Wright and his trailer for Don’t. It was hilarious and I loved the cameo by Wright regular Nick Frost, priceless. These guys have whet my appetite for more double-bill goodness, and hopefully Rodriguez and Tarantino will live up to the speculation and do a Grindhouse every few years or so.
Planet Terror 10/10; Death Proof 8/10
Grindhouse 9/10
Also, did Mary Elizabeth Winstead seriously vocalize the word “gulp” in her last moment onscreen? Loved it. Tarantino wrote her role perfectly and she played the dimwitted, beautiful looks/no brain actress to a T. I really wish there would have been more of her in the film to balance out the macho-chick empowerment bent that seemed a bit too heavy-handed in the final piece of Death Proof. Oh, and Nic Cage is the man.
- Currently 4.0/5 Stars.