Deathproof

Tonight's film is Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's answer to 1970's B-movies. Filmed in a grainy 70's style with poorly cut reels, screen flicker, scratches and burns but with mobile phones and mp3 players thrown in just to confuse. Then halfway through he gives up on this style and goes all black and white, then finally into glorious colour, where we stay all the way to the finale.
The film is about a psychopath called Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who enjoys killing women but his weapon of choice is his virtually indestructible 'death proof' stunt car. There isn't really any story as such and what there is isn't very original and has stolen ideas from all sorts of places but that's our Quentin.



The film consists of two pretty random scenes. The first is of a group of girls in a bar who are talking tedious girl talk about boyfriends and making out. Tarantino himself plays the barman in the bar. The girls may be good looking but listening to them is like sitting near a group of teenage girls using their mobiles on the Red Arrow to Derby. I suppose it's a typical Tarantino scene that has nothing much to do with anything. The problem is, the talk goes on way too long. If he was trying to build up tension then it doesn't quite work. It made me not want to sympathise with the characters but then perhaps that was the idea.



Did he decide to make a Tarantino movie with girls instead of guys. Hence we get the usual long dialogues but with girls talking girl topics rather than guys talking guy stuff. Is he sending up men or women here?

Perhaps all the talk pissed Stuntman Mike off too, because after he befriends them, he decides to kill them. We get a great crash scene and some excellent decapitations. They are replayed, Ian McEwen style, from the perspective of each of the girls as they meet their gory end.



Then we get the second random scene. Another group of tedious girls who seem to re-enact the opening diner scene from Reservoir Dogs. A girl version that is. Again the talking goes on a bit. These girls like cars and get hold of one on a test drive. One of them, dressed in a cheerleaders outfit, stays behind as collateral with the dodgy looking chap who is selling the car.

Whereas the first group were completely passive and were an easy target, Mike has bitten off more than he could chew with this lot. They are much tougher and fight back when he attacks them. We get a good car chase, if somewhat repetitive, with stuntwoman Zoe Bell looking great writhing around on the bonnet. In the end the girls win out and do Mike over but I'm a bit disappointed she didn't put that pole to better use. Whereas you feel kind of appalled by the first slaughter, you really feel quite elated by the second.

It's the kind of movie you either love or hate but then you either, get Quentin or you don't or you just watch the movie. I thought Death Proof was pure unadulterated fun. Loud, silly, quite artistic, and brutally violent. It put a smile on my face. The whole movie goes nowhere, brilliantly. Very Tarantino. Russell is excellent as the utterly deranged Stuntman Mike and the soundtrack too is a well worth a listen.

Apparently Death Proof was originally released as a 75-minute short film in the States as part of a 70's style double bill with fake trailers in between. If that version involved less dialogue then that might cure the faults in this film.



However I'd like to know what happened when the girls took what was left of the car back and what happened to the girl in the cheerleader outfit.