A couple of weeks ago Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof was selected as one of the DVDs of the week… “there is plenty of fun to be had in the ton of trash talking, the great soundtrack, Kurt Russell’s fun turn as ‘Stuntman Mike’ and, of course, the car-on-car action” was the short summation. But, as the following review proves, there are two sides to every story…
Much has been made of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s joint project Grindhouse. The format in which the film was intended should, in theory, have been a gift to cinemagoers: it was essentially two films for the price of one. However, after it was announced that in the UK Grindhouse would be released as two separate films, people’s interest started to wane. And looking at Death Proof as a standalone film, it’s easy to see why.
Death Proof is now touted as ‘the fifth film by Quentin Tarantino’. And it’s Tarantino through and through: it has some rather bloody violence, it is full of naturalistic banter and it is fiercely post-modern which, if you remember, was once quite cool.
The plot is quite simple. Kurt Russell plays Stuntman Mike, a psycho who has customised his car to be, you guessed it, “death proof”. In his invincible vehicle, he targets two separate groups of young women with the intention of just killing the crap out of them.
Most critics agree that Death Proof feels like half a film but to me it feels like two films with the second half feeling almost like a sequel to the first. Although clocking in at under two hours, it feels much longer.
The main problem is that there’s just too much dialogue. Of course, we’re used to Tarantino’s trademark sparky chitchat but here he really goes off on one. Any effort to convey the slow burning sense of impending doom is thwarted by the mere fact that for long periods of time all we see is people prattling on about, well, not very much.
When we finally get to see some carnage, it’s well handled, but the action scenes are few and far between, and while Kurt Russell is brilliant as the menacing Stuntman Mike, his appearance is virtually a cameo in what should be his movie.
I normally quite like Tarantino but I find this a bit too self-indulgent and frankly a little irritating.
Reviewed by John Gaskin.
Death Proof is available to own on DVD. trailer
