Genres

Visitors Review

2012-05-25 05:16:05

Tarantino Having Fun

Death Proof is Quentin Tarantino's contribution to the Grindhouse double feature, an unapologetic embrace of low budget exploitation films that played in drive-ins throughout the 60s and 70s. Heavy on "royal with cheese" dialogue and chalked full of some of Hollywood's best eye candy, Death Proof unmistakenly wears the fingerprints of its creator. Taking his homage as far as he can go, Tarantino also recreates the hisses, pops, cigarette burns, missing/repeated frames and audio inconsistencies common during the drive-in era. Despite the dozen or so scream queen roles that Tarantino no doubt wrote into the script so he could fill them with a casting couch, Death Proof's star is Kurt Russell, the mysterious Stunt Man Mike, an ageing scarred Elvis Man who drives around in a stunt car built to survive any accident. Since Stunt Man Mike knows he can live though any crash with this "Death Proof" car, he uses his automobile as a weapon to mow down Tarantino's titillating temptresses. Death Proof does not explain why Stuntman Mike does what he does, instead relying on the audience to accept the simplistic, one dimensional nature of classic exploitation horror films. Stunt Man Mike kills people...enough said. After what appears to have been a long life of automobile decapitations and mutilations, Stunt Man Mike seems to meet his match when he targets a car full of female stunt drivers, a duel which manifests into a car war that would make James Dean, Gene Hackman and The Dukes of Hazzard all jealous. The last half of Death Proof features some of the most unbelievable stunt work ever captured on screen, highlighted by Zoe Bell (real life stuntwoman playing herself) slipping and spinning on her car's hood at terrifying speeds. As with most of his work in the last decade and a half, Tarantino is more concerned with having fun than with recreating the brilliance of his early films. Nothing in Death Proof is meant to challenge the White/Pink bantering from Reservoir Dogs or the Christopher Walken scenes from True Romance or Pulp Fiction. He's not making those kind of movies anymore. Instead, Tarantino is like a Senior who only needs a few electives to graduate and spends his last semester taking swimming and ballroom dancing. He's done all the hard work and now just wants to have a good time. With Death Proof, Tarantino clearly achieves that goal...and audiences who understand his intentions will enjoy the ride.

HuskyEnzo 2012-05-25 00:18:43

"Yes, I'm the 'Unknown Stuntman' who made a lover out of Kurt"

Tarantino's roadkill-movie sends two groups of young and attractivewomen a few weeks after each other on a fatal cross-course with alunatic killer (Kurt Russel), a maniac whose lethal motivation remainsas unexplained as that of the truck-driver in Spielberg's "Duel".Set in the early 80s, the film salutes the "Cannonball-Fever" movies orH.B. Halicki-films such as "The Junkman". Since I didn't like "PlanetTerror" so much, I made a mental note and would suggest, that this onewould perfectly and rather match in a 'double-feature' with theexcellent "No Country For Old Men", which is also set in that time.There ain't much plot to tell (and spoilers are therefore practicallyimpossible) but the nevertheless movie is even so richer and coolerthan many others with a more complex story-structure.We follow a few beautiful women on their weekly tour to their favoritejoint where they first meet their hangman – the 'Unknown Stuntman'"Mike". Then -at dusk- the tour goes on to the open interstate whereMike waits in ambush and kills them in a kamikaze frontal crash,sacrifying his car and putting even his own life at stack just for thekillthrill.Months later ... Mike is on the road. Again. Some girls are on theirweekly tour. Again. They meet. Again. On the open county-roads the nextduel begins. But these ain't no average girls...The major part of the film is that following race-off and as you see ithas in about the same amount of plot as the terrific 'Cardigans' -videoclip "My favorite game".Hilarious is the scene where Mike finally mourns over his broken arm –the entire audience in my theater laughed their asses of. That, and hisbrief smile right into the camera before made Mike not the mostunsympathetic fella to us. But we rooted for the girls and his fateanyway.QT has a minor part in the movie, mainly playing himself and the usualState Trooper/Sheriff shows up too so the movie is regularly embeddedinto the QT-canon.The rest is: cool cars, cool chicks, cool music, cool carchase withnice crashes. That'll do for me.

folke1234 2012-05-20 22:41:55

Why so negative???

If you did follow the news at the time Deathproof premiered, you wouldhave heard that it is not a movie you might expect from Tarrantino.Personally, I really enjoyed watching it. Maybe there could have been alittle bit more progress or action, but if you look at the scene's, thetime they took for it, the editing, and above all acting! It is justwonderful.You should really not watch this movie if you expect torture, crime andblood. Just think about the way Tarrantino did when he made it, en youwill get it is a really nice piece of work. A movie in which hardlynothing big happens, is very difficult to direct. But the mostdifficult thing is to make people like it. And that is just whatTarrantino did in this very good title.,,You can break the rules of film-making, but only if you know why andwhich rule you broke...'' (Roemer B. Lievaart)

bobbing-headz 2012-05-20 11:53:38

Severely Disappointed

After watching this I can't help but think that Tarantino pretty muchjust blew it. Now I personally have not really seem much in the way ofgrindhouse films that serve as a base for this but I can say that thismovie seems to have completely missed the park. I'm sure most peoplewould say they don't like the slow pace and dialog. I actually am a fanof most Tarantino movies and this was probably the best part of thefilm for me. My problem was just that the movie really had no substanceto it. Sure I can see that a lot of grindhouse films lacked on plot ofstuff of that sort but this movie is just ridiculous. Essentially it'sa bunch of almost disjointed scenes thrown together and called a film.The plot is beyond non-existent, I mean it's hard for me to enjoy thefilm when the characters are spontaneously doing things. Really all thefilm is is a way for Tarantino to pay some tribute to the grindhousegenre and throw in his trademark directing. What comes out isn't reallya film.

Dragoneyed363 2012-05-19 21:27:15

Wonderful Movie That Gets Better Over Time

I absolutely adore Death Proof!!!With characters that are expressed sostrongly and each have something unique about them, Quentin Tarantinonever fails in his work!!!I will say that the first time I watched thisfilm I didn't like it all that well.The action was boring, when itFINALLY got up to it, and the talk scenes were way to long, but then Iwatched it again and liked it a little bit more.The next time I watchedit, the film wasn't THAT boring at all, and the action parts wereactually really exciting!!!Death Proof was really good.I have to saythat I strongly like it's sibling Planet Terror way more than it, butthat doesn't mean Death Proof was bad.I will be watching the"Grindhouse" movies for days to come, because they'll never get old andunexciting!!!

2012-05-19 11:23:05

one of the worst movies i've ever seen

Regarding the "Death Proof" movie.. I am so glad i borrowed this garbage from a friend (of questionable taste). Some reviews suggest that the long boring dialogs of the girls made them feel some kind of bond with the characters; please spare me... the acting was poor, the script worse... even the barely tolerable first crash scene was ruined by the over use of instant playback... The effect of watching the same scene 5 times from different angles did little more than remind me how fake the scene was and what a bad filmmaker Tarantino is... the final 3 minutes are the only part of the movie worth seeing... sadly there is no lower rating available...

2012-05-14 17:18:32

Great movies, should be ONE DVD!!!!

I love these movies, the directors always put out brilliant work. However this is one dvd I will not buy. These movies were shown as ONE and should be released as ONE! I'll find another way to own them.

b-havens 2012-05-13 23:14:38

.......I loved it....and then I saw the rest....then I threw up

I NEVER comment on here or any other site but I felt compelled to doso. I'll start out by saying this movie just looked amazing to me. KurtRussell-hot scantily clad/nude chicks-bad a$$ action-ruthlessviolence-little comedy-good solid R rating maybe NC-17... all thethings that are good in life basically. I thought this movie was gonnabe Sin City meets the Hitcher, what I got was some sort of sicktasteless joke(that maybe I just didn't get)That does NOT change thefact that the dialogue of the women is just plain terrible. I mean youactually want them to die, both groups to me are to annoying to live.The only scenes that are even tolerable are the ones with Russell(Whois awesome in this for the most part until Tarantino's awful ending).Bottom line here is the bad guy should have won this one. Three womenin there twenties out drive(A professional stuntman of some 20 oddyears) and then beat him to death! I HATE this movie It doesn't evendeserve a rating of 1. A rating of 1(Awful) is too good for this P.O.S.Quentin Tarantino-"You are awarded no points and may God have mercy onyour soul"

RedDragonStu 2012-05-13 07:16:59

Not just a bad Tarantino film, but a really BAD movie all together

For me, this has to be one of the worst movie I have seen all year. Ireally looked forward to watching it, more so than Planet Terror. Yet,where Planet Terror used humour to get through the horrific parts,Tarantinos film just appears to be the musing of a disturbed mind. Welldone to Zoe Bell, she was without doubt the star of the movie, but evenher great stunt work and plausible acting could not lift what is a direfilm. The car chase was nothing spectacular and we have all seen muchbetter before and will surely see again. The film failed to work on twofronts, the characters where to shallow for a thriller and there wasnot enough action to keep petrol heads happy. So who was this filmaimed at? Clearly not me. Its such a shame to see where Tarantino isnow. Pulp Fiction was great, Dogs was just a rip-off and Jackie Brownwas dull. Kill Bill was half a good movie and half a let down. This, isjust a let down.

2012-05-12 08:28:59

Wait for the double-feature--just like Masters of Horror

Well, it looks like I will be waiting again for the ACTUAL realease of this "double-feature". The alleged reason these two films were released were to bring back the "grindhouse" feel and that includes not only a second feature, but the hilarious trailers. Release like this it's just another movie (and this one is not as good imho). It took a year, but I waited for the box set of Masters of Horror and wound up paying much less that those who had to have it right away. While I would wholeheartedly recommend this with its other feature I cannot say I would buy it on its own.

Harry Carasso 2012-05-10 21:23:05

07 is not 70

So Tarantino wanted to make a revival of the 70s movies, in 2007. Hereminds me of a movie named 1984 (almost halfway from 1970 to 2007,based on the famous book by George Orwell), in which the main charactersays I CAN UNDERSTAND HOW, I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY. I can understand howTarantino managed to accomplish such a well-done movie. I cannotunderstand why he made it.I enjoyed all his previous movies, even KILLBILL, for the wonderful second hour of the second part. I gather themovie is a flop in America, while Cannes Festival swallowed it quitenicely. There are so much snobs in Cannes, the kind of "tout est dansle non-dit" (it's all inside the untold). No wonder Tarantino looked sosatisfied during his appearances there. Hope he does better next time,because his style is fresh in all the good and bad terms of the word.harrycarasso,Paris, France

jayce2279 2012-05-10 18:01:04

Surprisingly entertaining

Death Proof is Quentin Tarantino's homage to the B movie genre form thelate 60s, 70s and early 80s. Keep this in mind when you watch thisfilm. Like the original low budget flicks, this film has very badpicture quality and sound, terrible editing, silly dialogue, revealingmistakes and bad acting. Of course, these characteristics were allaccidental or due to a lack of talent in the original movies, whereasTarantino has deliberately added these "mistakes" in order to recreatethe feel of the old films. This might be a bit confusing or evenannoying during the first half hour or so, because, unlike 30 yearsago, this movie is not shown in a Grindhouse but a modern theater andyou can't help but notice that the bad editing is deliberate andtherefor misses the charm of the old B movies. Also, the fact that thefilm is set in 2007 but shot in a way that would be below standard even30 years ago, slightly removes the charm it would have had, had it beenset in the 70s. However, this changes about 30 min into the movie whencell phones, MP3 players and Japanese automobiles are replaced bymuscle cars, references to cult classics and John Hughes movies, oldschool car chases, stunts and your typical Quentin Tarantino dialoguesand soundtrack. The uncut European version could have done without someof the more boring conversations at the beginning of the film, though,but Kurt Russell more than makes up for this when he uses his old charmto talk Vanessa Ferlito into a lap dance and by the end of the filmreal life stunt woman Zoe Bell and Tracie Thoms will have you roaringwith laughter as they seek to get even with Stuntman Mike. AlthoughDeath proof might not be quite as impressive as House of 1000 Corpsesor The Devil's Rejects, it definitely is just as much fun.

James Bell 2012-05-07 14:23:45

Dynamite chase scenes but Extremely boring dialogue

I'll give this a 6 due to the chase scenes and the choice of wardrobesfor all the women in the film ( right out of the scantily-clad 70'sgrind house motif), but the conversations we're forced to sit throughare excruciating. I mean torture. I'm not sure why he forces us tolisten to this inane dribble between the women in the bar and in thecar. If you can get this on DVD and fast-forward through this crapyou'll miss NOTHING. The action scenes and chase scenes are worth theprice of admission and it has a explosive payoff ending but spareyourself listening to the dribble you'll never get that hour of yourlife back.

2012-05-07 09:13:38

Rip-Off Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grindhouse was ONE MOVIE THE CONTAINED TWO STORIES!!I loved Grindhouse and have been looking forward to the DVD release and I cannot beleive that they are doing this.The film did not do well at the box office so why not release it to the only ones who care.. the Fans! Dont split it in two!! I hope no one buys this and gets a bootleg copy of the real movie. This stinks!

2012-05-06 01:14:59

QUENTIN TARANTINO AT HIS WORST!!! IT SUCKED!!!!!!!!

Like everybody else, I tought that this movie would be GREAT because it was directed by Quentin Tarantino!! BUT IS PURE GARBABE!!!!!The movie itself is PURE BORING BLAH,BLAH,BLAH!!! 90% of talking and 10% of action!! I think this movie is for girl because of the conversations and the STUPID ending!!! The ending was the only action scene and it wasn't THAT cool! I seen a lot of feminist movies but this one is definitely the WORST!!! If you want feminism watch: The Luc Besson movies, I Spit on your Grave or Kill Bill!Pulp Fiction is the best film of Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill was COOL, Resevoir Dogs was GREAT, Jackie Brown was so-so and this one is the WORST!!! I don't care if this movie is a tribute to the 70's car movies! I saw Grand Theft Auto (1977) and it was MUCH BETTER this piece of s*&^!!!Sorry! but this movie is Quentin at his worst!! Adios.

Sean-M 2012-05-05 07:37:15

Assumption is the mother of all.....

Make no mistake, Death Proof is not a particularly entertaining film.In Russell and Tarantino you have a collaboration that I would and didpay good money to see. And in doing so I allowed myself to be misled bysome astute promotional work on the part of Dimension Films (there's anew one) and a premise that all but screamed slasher film only to setup as anything but.Like a moth drawn to the light, the lure of Kurt Russell engaging inroad movie violence was too much to resist. It may not have been adeliberate fiction on the part of the film-maker to pack out thetheaters with this premise. After all, Tarantino himself has publiclyemphasised the difference between this movie and a slasher movie.Nevertheless the fiction remained right up until the credits rolled, bywhich stage you can't help but feel that Tarantino misused Russell inyet another attempt to further popularise his now distinctive style offilm. A style that increasingly seems to resemble the director usinghis lofty position in the industry to showcase the 1970s because therest of us don't know what we've missed. And I personally would nothave had a problem with this had he not taken an 80s icon and epitomeof bad-assedness and then proceeded to sell him down the river beforemy very eyes by making him both different and diluted.Kurt Russell plays the role of Stuntman Mike, a psychopathicpersonality who stalks the roads in his death proof car preying onyoung and attractive women. As an idea it reads like a dream. Inreality it was inconsistent and boring. Tarantino hung large sectionsof dialogue on the women in the picture, both hunters and hunted, whilethe audience waited patiently for something to happen amid the bluffand bluster of conversations that included references to sex, marijuanaand of course lots of swear words, all stock in trade of anincreasingly one dimensional Tarantino. In Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fictionand even Jackie Brown these references are welcome and fresh. Theyrepresent breakout material. In Death Proof they are tired and old.You've seen it before. Again the script will likely be praised asanother piece in the overall body of work that encompasses the genius.Those who disagree will be told they don't get it. What I got was thatTarantino makes use of fleeting bar-room wisdom, Robert Frost and RoseMcGowan to let us know that Stuntman Mike is psychopathic. Alongside adark car. And guess what? Not one of the three is unique in theslightest. And so the film lurches like a bar-room drunk between nothaving enough depth to be interesting on the dialogue alone and nothaving enough violence or tension to be interesting in the exploitationsense, all while being obvious from the outset, a bad combination tohave. It runs slow, lacks build-up in key areas, is certainlypredictable from one particular elongated scene onwards and is largelytoo abstract amid the boredom. To say it reminded me of Cannonball runis no exaggeration, from serious to slapstick while actually stayingviolent.Kurt Russell! The Thing. Escape from New York. Big trouble in littleChina. THAT Kurt Russell is not the one you see in this film.Critically this will be received well because for what it is, it isgreat. And what it is is a raw showing of female empowerment, badversus badass. The fact that this sort of material has a very specifictime and place that isn't necessarily on the back of a potentiallyiconic collaboration is what lets Death Proof down. Do the researchbefore watching this one.

sme_no_densetsu 2012-05-05 07:05:53

Accomplishes what it set out to do, meaning that it's trash

Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" is a loving homage to theexploitative 'B' movies of a bygone era. He is able to channel some ofthe charm of those pictures but you are unlikely to enjoy the filmunless you share his affinity for those pictures which, to put itbluntly, are not very good to begin with.The film has trademark Tarantino touches in the direction and writing,so fans will likely not be disappointed on that front. The 'aging' ofthe film to heighten the sense of authenticity is well done also,though it seems that the latter half went mostly untouched,unfortunately lessening the effect.The acting isn't too bad for a film of this sort, especially KurtRussell as the murderous stuntman. Tarantino's dialogue shines in thefirst half of the film but for some reason I thought that the secondhalf didn't live up to the first. That is probably at least partiallydue to the new set of actresses.Overall, the underlying excuse for a story is utterly forgettablegarbage. The second half of the story in particular I found to beincredibly tiresome. It does feel authentic for the most part but Iwould rather have had quality than authenticity.If you like the kind of cult films that Tarantino emulates here thenyou will probably enjoy this movie. If you don't, do yourself a favourand skip this movie, even if you're a Tarantino fan.

2012-05-04 09:04:21

Original, funny and entertaining

Awesome awesome movie I loved it! Im ushually a chic flic kind of movie watcher and wasent sure if i would like it but Rose Mcgowan is my fave actress so I figured it was worth a shot. Im so glad I watched. It was compleatly entertaining and even though Rose dies withen the first half it was still a great movie.

2012-05-03 10:52:56

Tarantino's worst...

It's hard to believe that this movie is directed by the same man who brought us greats such as Pulp Fiction. Stupid, shallow plot, superficial characters engaged in vulgar, juvenile conversation. This was not an intelligent script at all. Tarantino needs to stop hanging out with Eli Roth, and then maybe he could get back into his former groove.

2012-05-03 02:44:20

Finally the wait is almost over

This review is from: Grindhouse Presents, Death Proof - Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD) Watch this and just TRY to get it out of your mind! The images from this movie haunted me for two solid weeks and reappear even now. I can't WAIT to see the long form. I was disappointed for about two seconds that they are in separate dvds, waahhh, get over it. We will just end up getting even MORE Tarantino and Rodriguez this way, and that's WORTH IT.