Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight guys, I'm taking a look at an exploitation film from 2007. That movie is "Death Proof".
Now, I can tell you several things that I know about this movie. Number one, this movie was originally released in theaters back in 2007 as part of a double feature known as "Grindhouse". Those two films they showed were "Death Proof" and "Planet Terror". I've already seen "Planet Terror" and I rather enjoyed it. Even though that film was ridiculously flawed, it was still an entertaining film. And, to me, that's all that really matters with movies is whether or not they are entertaining.
Number two, I know that this movie stars Kurt Russel. And I would have not known that if I didn't decide to read the back of the DVD case.
And three, this movie was written and directed by legendary filmmaker; Quentin Tarantino. And I've only seen only one other movie from Tarantino. That movie being "Django Unchained". And I really liked it. Partially because I'm kinda biased towards Westerns.
Other than that, I know nothing else about this movie. All I can say is that I really want to like this movie, but I also know that this movie could be a massive misfire from Tarantino. But the only way I'm going to know if I will enjoy this movie or not, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm going to do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Death Proof".
10 minutes later
OK, why is some parts of the dialogue being cut out before repeating itself? I totally understand that this movie is trying to pay tribute to the 1970's "Grindhouse" movies, but this is, like, the second time that this has happened. I certainly hope that this won't ruin the movie, but, so far, it's kinda distracting.
18 minutes later
All right, guys. I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news, we are almost a half an hour into this movie and nothing has happened. I mean literally NOTHING has happened. The good news is, the soundtrack in this movie is fucking awesome. I just wish the movie's pacing was a little bit better, but I'm certainly hoping for it to get better.
13 minutes later
You guys can't hear this song for obvious reasons, but this song is catchy as hell. I know I've already said that the soundtrack is fantastic, but honestly, this is the only positive that I can pull from this movie. Well that, and the acting, but still. Now only if we can get any likable characters and the pacing not to be shit, but there's still time for this movie to get better. Let's hope.
8 minutes later
O...K. Well, I was hoping for this movie to pick up and...well, seeing this chick getting her head smashed from the inside of the stuntman's car wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Certainly looked really cool, though.
3 minutes later
All right, well that was certainly rather gruesome. I just saw one of them get their entire leg to pop off, while another just got her face almost ripped off. That was rather awesome. So far, this movie is looking better already. Holy shit.
9 minutes later
So Kurt Russel's character threw his car keys on the ground just so he could go up to this car with two women inside it. One of them had their feet sticking out, as he not only touched the sole of this woman's foot, but also attempted to lick it before driving off so that he wouldn't be noticed. Considering that Tarantino has a foot fetish, I wouldn't be surprised if he added that part in just to show the viewer that, indeed, he has a foot fetish.
17 minutes later
You know, guys, I really hate all four of these fucking characters. They've been rambling about bullshit the entire time they've been on-screen, and I want Kurt Russel's character to just take his car and run these 4 bimbos down. That's how much I despise them so far.
19 minutes later
Why the hell isn't this fucking thing finished yet? Seriously guys, you have no idea how boring this fucking movie is. You would think that a car chase featuring our stuntman would actually be something interesting. But no. It's still boring as hell.
The Review
Thank god it's over. Well guys, that was "Death Proof". Let me shut that crap off...OK. Well, that was...rather disappointing. In fact, that's what I would sum up this entire movie is that it was really disappointing. Because, I know Tarantino can write better. This is nowhere near that. Um...let's start with the writing.
I mentioned at the start of this that this movie was originally released in 2007 as a double feature in theaters alongside "Planet Terror". Is this movie better than "Planet Terror"? No. Because while "Planet Terror" has it's faults, it still had better writing, characters you can care about, and it was just an overall better movie. "Death Proof" has none of that. We have here a shallow, if not borderline, plotless story that involves a bunch of women being stalked at by Stuntman Mike, which is Kurt Russel's character in this movie, as he wants to kill them. Why is he going after these women? I don't know. My guess is that he's doing it because he's just that much of a fucking creep.
And that's kind of it. Because hardly anything of value happens in this movie. Which leads to me to my biggest problem with this movie's writing is that nothing happens. We have scenes that go nowhere in this movie. For instance, the scene I mentioned earlier involving Stuntman Mike as he starts targeting these second group of women. The entire time, he goes up to this car, because one of these woman has her bare feet sticking out of the window because she has a blindfold on and never notices him. At least, until he starts licking her soles and that's when she starts to gain her senses before he scours off to get his keys that he threw on the ground, so he could have an excuse. Did the scene do anything? No. The only thing that it did was re-establish that our stuntman is just a creepy pervert. Which, you didn't need to do that, because one of the first set group of girls notices the black car at least twice. And we also get an inside shot of his camera as he starts taking photos of his targets.
Now, when I first saw the scene where he starts licking the woman's foot, I thought it was one of the girls who got her face peeled off from the crash that happened previously. Which no, that wasn't the case. And a slight spoiler, the girl's face that gets peeled off remains dead throughout the entire movie.
Another scene that went almost nowhere was the scene involving the second group of women, who are at this diner. And they strike up a conversation that goes absolutely nowhere. And the entire time, you can see Stuntman Mike's back as he's sitting at the bar table of the diner. I thought he was going to do something that would the make scene not boring, but towards the end of the scene, he just gets up and walks out of the diner. And...that's it. Nothing happened. And it really makes me question why do we have scenes like this go on for a lengthy amount of time and have nothing happening? Mind you, now, Tarantino's movies usually have a habit of pushing the runtime of around 2 and a half hours to 3. And this movie almost reaches that 2 hour mark. And yet, I watched "Django Unchained" and that movie had almost no scenes where it needed to pad itself out to 3 hours, and yet it still manage to gap itself between the 2 and a half hour to 3 hour mark. So what the fuck was this movie's excuse to go almost two hours and have dialogue that goes fuck-all nowhere?
Speaking of dialogue, before I popped in the movie in my DVD player, I was reading the back of the case, and one thing caught my attention, so allow me to read what it said.
"Featuring exhilarating high-speed action, jaw-dropping stunts, and some of the most quotable lines since "Pulp Fiction".
That guys, is a huge fucking insult to "Pulp Fiction", because this movie has nothing even close to what I would call a quotable line. Hell, I couldn't even tell you the names of our fucking characters, outside of two. One of them being Stuntman Mike, because he's in it for most of the movie. And Jungle Julia, who is one of the women who gets stalked at in the first half of the movie. And that's it. Everyone else might've had a name, but I couldn't remember it because they were all shallow and lifeless.
So, if you couldn't tell, the writing in this movie is incredibly shallow, and to compare the dialogue of this movie to "Pulp Fiction" is just a slap in the face. And it's really noticeable because Tarantino wrote, directed, AND was in charge of the cinematography for this movie. I'll get to cinematography in a bit.
Now shockingly, as shallow and almost lifeless as the writing was, the acting was actually great. Almost everyone turns in a great showing for their performance, save for one. And it was the guy who played the, I guess, car salesman, I think? Anyway, he was the only one who turned in a bad showing. But he's only in the movie for about 3 or 4 minutes tops, so he's not going to drag the movie down with his performance. That awards goes to the terrible writing. Sorry, but I had to harp on it just a bit longer. Anyway, I'll stop talking about that and move on to cinematography.
For the most part, the cinematography is pretty good, but I do have an issue with consistency. I mentioned earlier that this movie, and probably "Planet Terror", were films that were paying tribute to those 1970's "Grindhouse" movies. For those of you who don't know, the term 'Grindhouse' was used for theaters back in the 70's to showcase low budget films. I'm talking about stuff such as horror, exploitation, slasher flicks, and possibly porno, but I'm not totally sure about that last one. Point is, that's what this movie was trying to pay homage to. And, for like the first hour, this movie does do that. But after this movie jumps ahead 14 months later, the movie goes to black and white. Which, I'm not totally sure why. And that only lasts about ten minutes before the movie switches to perfect color picture quality for it's entire run. Why? If this movie was trying to pay homage to 70's "Grindhouse" movies, then why did this movie switch over to black and white and then perfect color? It really makes no sense to me. And it's even worse in black and white, because as I mentioned earlier, the girl who had her feet sticking out of the car, I thought it was the same girl who had her face peeled off from the crash, but you couldn't tell it was the same person, because the black and white setting makes it look like it was the same person, even with the blindfold. At least, until the movie decides to go to clear color picture quality and reveals that it's a completely different actress. No! You do not do that and confuse the viewer with someone else because you wanted to switch it to black and white because fuck you, that's why. Now, beyond all of that BS, the cinematography in this movie is really good. It's just the inconsistencies with those transitions make almost no sense and defeats the purpose of paying homage to those 70's "Grindhouse" movies.
Special effects in this movie, what few special effects there were, are really good. But then again, most of it is just blood effects and the props used for the body parts coming off are really well done. The car chases are performed really well, too. They're boring as hell, but they're not done poorly, so I can, at least, give the movie that.
Camerawork is really good. The lightning is well lit. The soundtrack is fantastic. In fact, that is the one true positive that I garnered out of this movie is that the music is great. Especially one song in particular which was called "Down in Mexico". I had to look up who performed that song, which was a group known as "The Coasters". That song was catchy as hell and I may have to download that song at some point. Mind you, now, that doesn't take away from the rest of the music in this movie. It's just that one song that stuck with me, is all. Sound-mix is almost done competently well, save for whenever characters had to talk through the rain in the first half of the movie. Because the sound of the rain comes down so fast, I could barely hear what the characters were trying to say because the rain almost drowned out their dialogue. I was considering turning up the volume on my TV just to understand what they were trying to say, but thankfully, the movie doesn't spend too much time outside in that scene, so it's not like you are going to completely be tuned out of the scene with the rain.
So...when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Death Proof"? Uh...no. If you want to watch a better "Grindhouse" movie, go watch "Planet Terror". It may be flawed, but I had a lot more fun watching that movie than watching this. This movie really sucked. With shallow and lifeless writing, along with shallow characters, this movie really falters in both areas. And now, I'm going to have to be more cautious the next time I watch a movie from Quentin Tarantino. Because this movie, so far, is by far his worst movie. And now, I kinda want to go and re-watch "Planet Terror" because I feel like watching a better "Grindhouse" movie and pretend that this movie never happened.
Anyway guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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