Death Proof (2007)

Originally Written

Friday , September 21, 2007

It's possible I don't get it, but I find it more reasonable that the niche of people who seem to be die hard Tarantino fans have some sort of screw loose in their brain which allows them to think these films are that great. The fact that The Grindhouse bombed at the box office with a meager $25 million in profits, proves the duo of films are more suited for art house fans and not the average movie viewer. Strangely for some odd reason I was actually looking forward to checking out Death Proof, but after 45 minutes of pointless girl talk I knew death had already totaled this film.

If you're looking for a pointless, plot-less and pitiful pile of poo, Death Proof is your film. I think most people (especially those not familiar with Tarantino) will go into this expecting a lot of gory action and will end up turning it off after 15 minutes of pointless conversations between a bunch of drunken, high and vulgar hoes. But if you happen to stick it out for another 30 minutes or fast forward (which is recommended after personally setting through the first 45 minutes) you'll discover that the character of Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a serial killing freak who gets his kicks killing girls with his car (albeit trailer trash girls of which the world would be better off without). Stuntman Mike's first massacre is by far the highlight of the film but three minutes of gore doesn't make up for 45 minutes of bore.

The film appears to end on that relatively low high note, but then continues on as Stuntman Mike moves on to another "classy" group of women (more annoying than the previous ones). Once again the viewer is punished with too much crap-tacular girl talk, which I quickly fast forwarded past (fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me). As I learned from the first 45 minutes nothing happens or matters to the overall plot of the story that can't easily be picked up later on. This group of girls is made up of a couple actresses and stunt women who decide to head off on a road trip for a few days. One of them decides it would be fun to strap herself to the hood of a Challenger that they borrowed for a "test drive" and she quickly finds herself almost eating pavement when Stuntman Mike rolls around. Unfortunately for Mike he quickly finds out he picked on the wrong girls.

Overall, I don't see the "beauty" in this film. While Tarantino captures the essence of bad 70's films with bad editing, campy music and terrible acting, paying homage to crap is still crap. Nobody praised those who originally made these types of films and certainly no one should be praised for recreating something that wasn't hard to do in the first place. While I'll give the film points for looks, I can't give it points for much of anything else. Even the characters are so awful that I was rooting for Stuntman Mike to take the girls out (especially in the second half), but even Kurt Russell, the best thing in the film, turns out to be a wuss in the end!

In the end, Death Proof is horrible. A few BRIEF chase scenes and a copied B-movie style doesn't save this film from being completely bad. I might think twice about renting Planet Terror if this was the better film... on the other hand if people loved this film more, Planet Terror might be pretty good.

3/10