Death Proof

source: Death Proof

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Yes, it was directed by Tarantino a guy who made youknowwhatbrilliantfilms in the past but whom seems to have lost his edge absolutely. This could have been made into a short movie of...er...say...5 minutes. I don't recall such an awful and meaningless dialogue among the characters in a film which lasted...er..some 114 minutes. Nonsense gaily talk for most part of the movie. OK we all love that lap dance but anyway what was the point? Come on Quentin what happened to you man? I reckon that being a multimillionaire does not help very much your creativity.but it will be difficult to made a worse flick. I only felt sorry for Kurt Russel being wasted as he was. You can openly see the potential of his character but feel pity how this mess ended up One last thing, wasn't that car supposed to be deathproof?But not girlsproof? hahaha So do yourself a favour and watch this as a substitute for an sleeping pill when shown eventually late at night on TV.

Clunky editing, grainy filming, laughable stories, ultra-violence and exploitation in the guise of feminism and blacksploitation. Not the most appealing of conventions when it comes to the modern cinema audience. Perhaps this explains, to a certain extent, why the old drive-in formula of watching back-to-back trashy hardcore exploitation films was lost on American audiences. Grindhouse took a paltry $4.2 million on its opening weekend and has thus far failed to make back even half the double movie's budget. This despite most critics who went to see it having nothing but praise for Tarantino and chums. But apparently only seeing the numbers, Quentin and co-director Robert Rodriguez decided it would be best to split their respective stories apart, and release them as two movies in the UK, flying in the face of Grindhouse logic. The first of these films, is Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's homage to the likes of producer Roger Corman's Deathrace 2000 and director Jack Hill's Switchblade Sisters (1975), with Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike having an unhealthy obsession with crashing into cars driven by young ladies. An appropriately stupid premise tailor-made for a grindhouse market. Why then does the film seem so incidental when attempting to recreate the vibe of a Corman-style trash fest? The long and short answer is that this isn't really a grindhouse film. It is a Tarantino film with the ghosts of so many bad old movies hovering over it. Yes you get the grainy film footage, and the purposefully poor editing that raise the chuckles they crave. But that quickly fades away, and Tarantino very quickly moves into familiarly talkative territory akin to hit men talking about European hamburgers or bank robbers musing about the veracity of Madonna's hit single "Like A Virgin". Although this is not entirely a bad thing, it is not inherently valid for this type of material. Tarantino can't help but overload his scenes with meaningless meandering, almost as if he has reached the point of aimless directorial swaggery. One scene, for instance, involves one of the girls buying a magazine at a gas station. A simple interaction that goes on forever it would seem, failing to tell us anything about the characters or indeed the plot. At least Pulp Fiction had meaning behind the mundanity of its own inhabitants. I did often wonder if much of this was down to Tarantino having to bulk up his film after splitting it from Planet Terror. It has the veneer of a movie in desperate need of a good editor, much in the same way that Kill Bill vol. 2 needed a good spit shine. And then we have the actual car scenes. Well barring the ultra-violent central car crash that splits the film's two female groups, and the climactic car chase (expertly executed) Death Proof is nothing more than a girls gone hiking film. Again, blame the editing, for an awful lot of this movie creates a hugely diverting story of girls pontificating the kind of popular interests that only Tarantino would make them do, such as a love for the film Vanishing Point or Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch. Is it stylish? Absolutely. No Tarantino film could ever bore you aesthetically, or indeed talk you to death with insipid dialogue. Even if it is uneven and ponderous, listening to these characters waffle on about nothing in particular is still executed smoothly and embodies that Tarantino air of coolness. Maybe the inevitable release of Grandhouse as a whole will win over my heart more. It's a bit of a mess, but like all car crashes, you can't help but stare at it.

One half of the Rodriguez/Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse, kindly padded out to feature length for us non-American viewers, Death Proof features Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, a deranged driver who likes to deliberately cause fatal crashes. But when he picks on a car which just happens to include a couple of Hollywood stunt women amongst its passengers, the tables are turned and poor old Mike gets a taste of his own medicine. An homage to the violent, gritty, un-PC action flicks of the 70s, Death Proof comes complete with dodgy editing and scratchy film stock, in an attempt to deliver that authentic 'grindhouse' vibe. Okay Quentin, I get it! You're a cool bloke. You like cool music, cool films and cool people. But why do you feel like you have to constantly prove to us how cool you are by repeatedly referencing all your cool cinematic influences in unrealistic conversations between unrealistic characters, whilst your cool soundtrack endlessly plays in the background (which is always littered with visual references from your goddamn favourite cool films)? The experience is so bloody boring: 45 minutes of nothing but chit-chat (complete with your oh-so tiresome references to Kahuna burgers and Red Apple cigarettes), followed by a decent car crash (that shows what you are capable of when you're not trying so hard to be cool), then more chin-wagging (mention foot massage one more time, Quentin. I dare you. No, I double dare you!), even more movie references (don't you understand that when you have your actresses wax lyrical about B-movies and fast cars, thus creating a fantasy world where gorgeous women actually share YOUR passions, it comes across as rather sad?), and, finally, a well executed car chase capped with an extremely crap ending. I have a sneaking suspicion that, as part of the original Grindhouse double bill (with Rodriguez's Planet Terror and some faux trailers for other trashy movies), a shorter version of Death Proof (with less jibber jabber) would have worked slightly better. But since the rest of the world (outside of the U.S.) has been denied the chance of seeing this version, all I can do is judge the cut I have seen. And it is not good.

This is by far and away the worst Tarantino film I have seen. An hour and a half or more (time begins to lose its meaning when watching this rubbish) and 95% of it is spent watching either group of 4 women "having a laugh" with each other. Basically this involves unrealistic swearing and dialogue which would have been slightly more believable had it been men saying the lines. There is a short break for a minute or two while the first group of women are killed. After another interminable fly on the wall peek at a further group dribbling on there is an attempt to kill them followed by them deciding to kill Kurt Russels character. This film is reminiscent of a 5 year old's first attempt inexplicably brought to life. Previously I would watch one of Tarantino's films without reading more into it. Now I would have to read some positive reviews. An hour and a half or so I will never get back.

I can't figure this out, and I sincerely apologise if this is a useless review but Tarantino has done it again. I find it difficult to explain why this film hit the spot when so many others did not. Tarantino definitely has a handle on reality, and doesn't need to create artificial story lines and make believe monsters to thrill and intrigue his audience. This is a film that illustrates our everyday idiosyncrasies and shows us both the real, yet dark side of humanity, and shows us that real life is far more exciting and intriguing than fantasy. The dialogue between characters was funny, real, and interesting. Bringing together a variety of different characters (eg cheerleader, successful celebrity, ghetto girlie etc), he illustrates the common traits of the human psychology that we all pretend don't exist. Most other films take us into unrealistic fantasy, Tarantino knows reality is far more exciting! Kurt Russell surpassed himself. He's been absent for too long, and his part in Death Proof leaves me wanting to see more from him. His acting was superb and I hope this film relights his career and we see more from him soon. I definitely saw touches of Pulp Fiction in this film, but in a subtly different way. Cinematography was awesome, and the use of weird and wonderful camera techniques made this film more than just interesting. When it comes to films I'm a tough critic, I'm disappointed far more than I'm surprised so giving a 10 out of 10 for me is very unusual. This is a clever, interesting, and unusual film that will appeal to serious lovers of movies. Tarantino is both a movie scholar and genius. I bow before you Quentin and hope desperately to see more like this. Many thanks ... Shaun

Am I the only one that thinks Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof' is a piece of junk? The first hour of the movie consists of four women chatting away in a bar about the party tonight and how the boyfriend of one of them who's a radio personality is like TOTALLY spaced on her birthday and blah, blah.. blah... freaking BLAH! Then they get killed by a mysterious guy called Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell). That's when the action begins.....and lasts for like 5 whole minutes! Then cut to few months later where another group of women chatting of the type that makes most men's eyes roll up into their skulls. Sorry, ladies but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I know that when my wife has a bunch of her friends over I have to either leave the house or retreat into my den, otherwise it's like having bamboo shoved under my fingernails. Now eventually... eventually as in 45 long..... torturous..... b-o-r-i-n-g minutes later, Kurt Russell finally shows up again to wreak havoc on this set of women. Unfortunately by this time I was so mad at having had to sit through so much mind numbing dialog that I couldn't even enjoy the car chase and what followed. No payoff could have been big enough for having been subjected to about a full hour of excruciating boredom except for maybe, the credits to roll. I don't know what the heck happened to Tarantino, but if felt like he was channeling Oprah or "The View" through some sort of trailer park filter. It was, in a word: bizarre. Another 5 minutes of car chase action. Then the movie ends. This movie is supposed to be a spoof on the 70's B-grade camp movies. However it turned out to be one of the most boring movies I've seen in my life!

This movie was a total disgrace to the genre and shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as movies that showed in the old Grindhouses. For those that are unaware, a Grindhouse was an establishment that showed exploitation films starting in the late 50's, in the area where I grew up it was mainly drive-ins. Some of the popular and most common titles of the Grindhouse genre are Death Race 2000, Blacula, Piranha, Boxcar Bertha, Cannibal Hookers, Shogun Assassin, Blood feast, Last House on the Left, Born Loser, Cannibal Holocaust, Dawn of the Dead, to name a very few. This film starts off boring and only has one redeeming feature that comes way too far into the film to save it and that is a car chase (possible spoiler?) that is pretty well done, but looks to be a whole lot of stunt ideas that have been weaved together to make one (way too long) chase scene. After watching this film it made me truly believe that brief and fleeting brilliance of Tarantino was truly limited to Pulp Fiction (a film that I thoroughly enjoyed) and possibly even From Dusk 'Til Dawn (a stretch) and in his case should be considered only luck but certainly not talent. The really poor box office response should be a message to all that this film rates the scrapings in the bottom of the barrel and only served to drag a much better 'Grindhouse' soon to be classic named Planet Terror down with it (poor Robert). Thank the distributors for deciding to release the DVD's separately. I have a collection of over 400 such Grindhouse films and will not be adding this one, but will be adding Planet Terror...but that is another review.

I honestly think Death Proof is one of the most underrated films at the time I'm writing this (2015). A lot of people on this board seem to complain about the dialogue or the delivery of some of the actors. I personally think this movie has a lot of punch with a strong car chase sequence, very good actors, well-written script....and a perfect soundtrack! I really like how the first part of the movie is a classic slasher/horror movie and the second part is a great throwback to "car movies". Death Proof came out in 2007 and I remember watching this movie with my friend and having a really good time. I watched the movie another time a few years later and really enjoyed it to for other reasons, especially the classic car chase sequence. Now it's 2015, I've just watched Death Proof for a third time and it's still a blast to watch. The music is perfect, the movie is very funny, and I love the performance from Kurt Russell, Sydney Poitier (Jungle Julia) and all the other supporting characters. R.I.P. Sally Menke, I really love her work on this movie...not only for the great grindhouse "jump cuts" but also for one of my favorite scene halfway through the movie that I won't mention and the awesome 11-min well edited car chase. I gave the movie a strong 9/10 and I hope this movie will have a better reputation 5-10 years from now. Great work from Quentin Tarantino!