Stuntman Mike leers over women, and has candid photos of them clipped to his car mirrors. That this film was executive produced by Harvey Weinstein is sadly ironic. Why? It’s a film about a man who preys on women, who sees them as objects whom he can treat as he desires, and who is utterly owned by those women at the end. At least Pulp Fiction’s “Royale with Cheese” conversation is funny.ĭeath Proof should have come out today.
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Why have long conversations if they’re not going to pay off, especially in a movie that’s supposed to be visceral trash? It’s strange to see Tarantino drop the ball in this way. And again, there are conversations that drag on that don’t drive the story along in any way, no pun intended. It’s really an overextended opening kill that only sets up the second half. The first group of women are murdered in a first act that seems to go on forever, with tons of mostly inconsequential dialogue that doesn’t pertain to the storyline (more about that below) - side stories that never pay off. There’s none of Tarantino’s non-linear trickery here, nor are there too many pop culture references or all-timer amazing monologues from badass gangsters.īut even as a cheap exploitation flick, Death Proof’s script is pretty weak. Your enjoyment of the film will depend on whether you’re willing to buy in on the concept. But Tarantino was beholden to the tropes found in slasher and muscle car films of the 70s, and that might be a sour point for those expecting another Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. Veer too far off and you’re being unfaithful to the genre. Tarantino avoided doing a straight slasher movie because he believed that the formula was too rigid. It’s not an intellectual exercise or a high-minded drama - there’s a slo-mo scene of a young woman’s leg getting sawed off in a car wreck, for crying out loud. There’s really not much to the story, and it’s in keeping with the grindhouse genre. He attempts to murder three more, but they fight back and kill him. A crazed stuntman uses his car to murder four women. Death Proof lives and dies on its stunts, and they pack a punch. Tarantino didn’t want to shoot any of the car scenes in CGI, and thank god he didn’t. I mean, she’s really on the hood of that car, speeding down the road. When stuntwoman Zoë Bell clings to the hood of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, which is whipping this way and that way across the road, it’s nuts.
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Tarantino had learned a thing or two about how to shoot action in Kill Bill, and it shows. Seeing that this is a movie about a crazed stunt car driver, it’s a good thing that the car chase scenes are so impressive.
There’s art to the sequence - purpose - and that can be attributed to Tarantino, who actually served as director of photography for the first time around. Tarantino repeats his slow pan around the table seen in the diner scene from the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, and it’s revealed that Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is actually seated at the bar. Take the conversation at the diner with Abernathy, Kim and Lee. This is a well-shot film - not incredible, nothing you’d hang on your wall or make your computer’s wallpaper, but competent and purposeful. Where Death Proof differs from actual grindhouse flicks, however, is in the cinematography. It’s almost cartoonish, akin to someone taking a photo and using one of Instagram’s vintage photo filters, but it creates just the vibe he’s going for. Fake “cigarette burns,” scratches and an oversaturated color palette give the film a look that is unmistakably 1970s (it doesn’t hurt that the cars and half the clothes look like they’re straight out of Dazed and Confused). Grindhouse flicks were notoriously cheap and filthy-looking, and Tarantino captures the aesthetic, taking viewers back to the seedy, low-rent theaters where these types of films used to play. An editing “error” appears showing the original title of the film: Quentin Tarantino’s Thunderbolt.
The film looks grainy and deteriorated, as if it’d been stored in someone’s damp basement for years. In sticking so slavishly to formula, it’s not as inventive as his other films, but it does tap into some feminist themes that make it particularly relevant for the #MeToo era.Īs soon as Death Proof begins, things are a tad askew. Well, a grindhouse film that looks a hell of a lot better than most grindhouse films, and one that still possesses Tarantino’s wit and visual panache. With Death Proof, one half of the double feature Grindhouse, Tarantino went all in and made an actual grindhouse film.
But apparently that didn’t scratch the director’s grindhouse itch. With Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino blended his favorite grindhouse/exploitation genres to tell an original, high-octane tale of revenge, but it wasn’t a direct aping of 70s samurai or kung fu flicks - it was a postmodern mash-up, told through his unique lens.
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