Grindhouse - Death Proof

Two of the most drawn out hours of my life that I will never, ever get back.

I appreciate Tarantino's attention to detail in attempting to make a movie in homage of B-grade 70's drive-in flicks and exploitation films, but sadly this has resulted in a C-grade movie whose only redeeming feature is some nice casting/eye candy.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. I loved the references/inspiration/ideas, but hated the execution (where Tarantino normally excels). I loved the idea of getting Snake Pliskin (err.. Kurt Russell) to drive the Death-Proof-mobile.

What kills it is that, while the characters all have sharp tongues, the character-driven (read: monotonous) dialogue fails to reward the viewer any truly Tarantino-trademark-worthy sound bites. While the movies Tarantino references are drawn out by nature, the interaction between characters is where this film falls down; for the lengthy exchanges, there's no legitimate wit. The sparse action between dialogues cannot salvage the film. And while the music (another Tarantino trademark) is OK, it also fails to leave a distinctive mark.

[Minor note: if you are going to put in all the extra film grain, jagged splices/transitions and "accidental" artefacts, do it for the whole film. It seemed to be concentrated into the first half hour, and then only very occasionally for the remainder of the film.]

Maybe a shorter edit from when it was paired in the double feature with Planet Terror would be watchable. But the 2 hour standalone edit is simply self-indulgent, and I don't mean that in a good way.

If it is your fantasy to be a voyeur watching a script writer masturbate to Cosmo and Street Machine, then I recommend this film.

Otherwise, watch this short clip on Tarantino's theories about Top Gun instead :)