Death Proof

(2007)

Directed by

Quentin Tarantino

Review by Zach Saltz

Note: This review may contain missing letters, words, and phrases.  The editing staff would like to apologize for any such inconveniences.

Love him or hate him, Quentin Tarantino has firmly established himself as the foremost oddball film genius of his generation.  Armed with the same vibrantly unhealthy obsession with the cinema as his New Wave forefathers of the 1960s, as well as an unusually keen ability to create trivial dialogue that is somehow mesmerizing and a little transcendent (who will ever forget John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s discussion of “royales with cheese”?), Tarantino’s films are that of a passionate artist investing his entire livelihood into his body of work.  No one can reasonably accuse him of selling out for mere profit; no wonder it seems like an eternity between the release of his last pic and the upcoming release of his next.   

Three years ago, he made Kill Bill: Volume Two, unquestionably his chef-d’oeuvre, which topped my list of the Best Films of 2004; his stock was as high as it had ever been.  And now the “boy genius” has returned to the silver screen with Death Proof, a nostalgic homage to the trashy “deadly car” films of the 1970s (Christine, Death Race 2000, Convoy).  The story involves two groups of women who are ravaged by a deranged stuntman (Kurt Russell) who has suffered a few too many blows to the head.  The first group meet “Stuntman Mike” at a bar during a long night of drinking and conversing, and Rose McGowan’s Pam, far less compelling of character than the amputee stripper/comedienne Cherry from Planet Terror, has enough bravery to tag along with him for a ride in his 1971 Chevy Nova (the same car driven by Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction).  The second group of women have a less severe fate than the first, and take their revenge in a style that would make Russ Meyer smile in his grave.

The second of the two Grindhouse pieces, Tarantino’s film has everything we would expect on the most minimal level imaginable, at least in terms of the “Tarantino trademarks”: namely, the inclusions of (a) incessant and creepy shots of women’s feet, (b) POV shots from inside the trunk of an automobile, and (c) more dialogue than David Mamet and Eric Rohmer having their dinners with Andre.  Tarantino’s dialogue has always been lauded as self-reflexive and bountifully hipster, but here, it is flat and uninspired (save one remarkable line delivered by Stuntman Mike to Vanessa Ferlito’s angelic Butterfly: “There are few things fetching as a bruised ego on a beautiful angel.”)  After gleefully watching an hour and a half of blood-sputtering zombies being mauled by one-legged women with machine guns as prosthetic legs in the first film, the exceptionally slow pace of Death Proof proves nearly unbearable.  Who cares about Jungle Julia’s boyfriend?  Who cares about Zoe’s search for a new car in Tennessee?  Couldn’t this time have been devoted to more previews of Werewolf Women of the SS?  Maybe we didn’t care in Reservoir Dogs either, but at least it was stimulating and kept us awake for the finale.  Once the virtuoso 15 minute car chase we paid $7.50 for actually arrives, the constant revving of the engines serves little except to wake us up.

Frankly, I am a little perplexed as to where things went wrong in Death Proof.  The dialogue is unending as well as unnerving, but how is this truly different than the unremitting dialogue of Tarantino’s previous films?  In Pulp Fiction, his characters sit around and discuss the implications of rubbing a woman’s feet, the differences between a normal hamburger and a Hawaiian burger, and sing songs by Urge Overkill.  In Death Proof, the characters sit at a table and discuss doing the laundry in the middle of the night, the differences between New Zealanders and Australians, and recite poetry by Robert Frost.  Maybe the blame should be placed on the actors; Tarantino doubly emphasizes the “stuntperson” motif by making his lascivious leading ladies none other than stunt doubles from his previous films – it is evident why they should only be employed in scenes where they are far off in the background.  Kurt Russell is fun, but doesn’t have the charisma of even some of minor players in the Rodriguez feature.  And while Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan are certainly easy to look at, their lame dialogue comes as a major liability (most of Pam Grier’s sex appeal in Jackie Brown came from her conversations with Robert Forster).  But I can’t help but wonder if I would have a little more sympathy had I not experienced the awesome spectacle of the Rodriguez film and the uproarious phony trailers immediately preceding the film.  Perhaps Death Proof is only the product of unfortunate placement.

Quentin Tarantino’s reputation will not take too much of a dive as a result of the failure of Death Proof (as for his appearance in Planet Terror, the jury is still out, along with a few vital body parts).  After all, classically-trained pianists sometimes like to like to pound out a little honky-tonk just for fun; now it is time for Tarantino to return to more substantive material.

Rating: