GRINDHOUSE: Death Proof

This is the 2nd half of Grindhouse and the the only part directed by an Academy Award Winner-Quentin Tarantino. How is this slasher with a car? Awesome as well? Yes, but not as awesome as Planet Terror, or the fake trailers for that matter.

The story really needs to be devided into 2 parts. The first part focus on Jungle Julia and a group of her friends getting drunk at a bar, when they run into a man named "Stuntman Mike." Jungle Julia promises whoever recites this poem to her friend, will get a lap dance from her friend, and Stuntman Mike, who has a car that is "100% death proof" is the man that knows the poem. That night he gives a girl a ride home, and sends 4 others home... IN A BODY BAG! The second half of the story is about a group of four girls who are on the set for a movie when they decide to play a came with a car like the one from The Vanishing Point. During this game, Stuntman Mike shows up and the fun begins...

Kurt Russel plays Stuntman Mike, and god damn is he great! He is such a cool collected character, but he gives an extremely creepy feeling off any time he is on screen. From this character who harkens back to his days of being a total badass in John Carpenter movies he totally switches roles and becomes down right terrifying in one exchange of dialouge that begins like this. "Which way is your home?" "Take a left." "Ah, that's too bad, you have to get scared now..." While it seems a bit cheesy there, the rest of the dialouge is crazy and fun and everything one would want from Taratino film.

Directing wise, this movie was very good, but not great. Most of the movie is talking, and while Taratino is great with dialouge, it seems like he is going back to the well. Seriously, there is one conversation in the 2nd half that was just him re-using his shots from the opening dialouge of Reservoir Dogs. Let me tell you this though, this has the greatest, greatest car chase/car crash ever. So much excitement so much pure adreniline. It is simply a work of modern pop-art.

My one problem with this movie is that it didn't feel as if it was a genuine "grindhouse" flick. It seemed like Taratino wrote one of his basic scripts with a scary character and a cool death scene and made a great movie with it. It was way too much talking for a real "grindhouse" movie, and even though we got a lot of clothed shots of T&A, with all these hot chicks in the movie, we should have seen some bare flesh. Usually I don't judge a movie on nudity, but this is a movie called GRINDHOUSE for heaven's sake.

In the end, this is a great movie but the least enjoyable part of Grindhouse. It has great direction, and acting, but gets too talky at times.
My Rating: 4.5/5