Death Proof was originally one half of a two part feature known as Grindhouse in the US, paired with the Robert Rodriguez zombie film 'Planet Terror'. Unfortunately Grindhouse was a flop in the US. Could that be because the film was too long (just over three hours) for the average Joe to sit through or did the studio decide that they would make more money splitting the films into two, scrapping the whole 'grindhouse' idea (watching two films, back to back at the theatre)? I personally love the idea of the 'grindhouse' experience but unfortunately as I live in the UK I haven't got the choice, both films will be released separately.Anyway, I could moan about the unfairness of being denied the chance to experience Grindhouse for ages so I'll put a cap on that for the moment.
With this version of Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has included extra footage unseen from the Grindhouse cut and apparently "made the movie it should have been", through his eyes.
Anyone unaware, this movie is a homage to the B-movie genre from the late 60's and 70's and has that certain low grade quality to it and was apparently shot using traditional techniques.
The film is about a stunt driver, called Stuntman Mike who has a thing for killing young women with his adapted stunt car. The car has been made 'death proof' (hence the title) with a roll cage and re-enforced shell. I really like the Stuntman Mike character (played by the excellent Kurt Russell) and the moments with him on screen are brilliant. He has a dirty great big scar across his face, drives that mean car and has a dark on screen presence. The driving scenes are really quite amazing and the crashes are really gruesome, in the best possible way!
Ok, this is where I'm going to be totally honest about what I thought, not that my opinion carries much weight!
I think its quite obvious what extra footage has been included in this version of Death Proof. If you strip down most of the dialog between the female characters this film would actually be pretty decent in my books but this is probably the area where the extra stuff was added. I found the dialog to be extremely boring and far too long, something which can probably be said for some of Tarantino's previous work. Yes, at the time dialog in his films such as Pulp Fiction was really different to what was around and it seemed pretty original. I recently re-watched Pulp Fiction and wanted to sleep through most of it. I really hate it when a character says something, makes a comment or statement then has to explain his or herself in great detail is a wise-ass style. Is that always necessary?
I really loved the way the film started with the dated looking ad's and the old grainy footage effect, that was great. But I was expecting the film to be set in this time period (late 60's - 70's), yeah - I know its a homage but does it work when its set in the current day with mobile phones and iPods but shot in an old style? I found the grainy effect on the film to be inconsistent throughout. It started off well, dipped in the middle and came back near the end. Oh yeah, am I the only person who thinks the whole "shooting a scene in black and white" has past the stage of being cool. It worked in some of his other films but really, is that necessary in all of them? The moment it turned black and white in Death Proof didn't make a scrap of difference to the plot, it was at no real interesting spot and felt like a waste of time. It did work incredibly well during the fight scene with the 'Crazy 88's' in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 though.
Tarantino has always been able to produce a really decent soundtrack for his previous films. They usually consist a great collection of relatively unknown but very "cool" tracks and I think with Death Proof he's achieved the same . I've had the soundtrack on CD since April this year and like most of it. I just think it was a shame that it wasn't integrated into the film better. The majority of the tracks will be heard during the bar scene on the jukebox.
Going back to Grindhouse - I'm sure Death Proof would have been a much better film trimmed down by 30 or 40 minutes and would have felt right for its genre. The film, together with Planet Terror and the specially made trailers (directed by Robert Rodriguez, Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Rob Zombie) would have made the whole experience worth while.
To end on a positive, I really liked Kurt Russell's character, I loved the actual driving scenes and I thought the soundtrack was pretty good.
