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Aug
28
Written by:
Bill Bonfanti
8/28/2009 7:37 AM
2 out of 10
Let me begin by saying that I love Quentin Tarantino. He is one of my all time favorite filmmakers. In fact, True Romance (written by him) is my favorite movie of all time so I don’t take this review lightly and in no means am I just trying to tear him apart. That being said, Death Proof is the worst piece of trash movie that I’ve ever seen. It is absolute rubbish and if I could have a procedure done to erase it from my mind, I would do it, no matter what the side effects were. It’s that bad. Given I’ve seen plenty of bad movies in my day, but the fact that this was made by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, makes it that much worse.
Let me warn those of you that haven’t seen this movie and don’t want it spoiled (if that’s even possible), this is a rewind review and plot points will be revealed. You’ve been warned.
As soon as I heard about Robert Rodriguez and Tarantino’s idea to make a double feature homage to “Grindhouse” B-movies from the 70’s I had a bad feeling. However, I figured it would have to be good simply because Quentin has never let me down before. As the release date neared and trailers started popping up, I decided my initial feeling was probably correct and I avoided watching Death Proof so as not to destroy my love for all things Tarantino. Flash forward two years to 2009. After watching the masterful, Inglorious Basterds (read my review here), my curiosity finally got to me. How could I, being such a big fan of his work, never watch Death Proof? It seemed absurd. It’s Quentin Tarantino! Even if it’s a bad Tarantino flick, it had to be better than half the movies out there. I couldn’t have been more wrong. This movie is so bad it’s as if Quentin decided to make it this bad by choice. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. On one hand, if he set out to make a terrible movie, then I have to congratulate him for a job well done. On the other hand, if he did this on purpose, it pisses me off to no end. How could he disrespect his fans like that? My guess is that Quentin probably didn’t set out to make a terrible movie and that sometimes these things happen. Nonetheless, I’m still dumbfounded that this genius filmmaker could make something so atrocious. The first 20 minutes is an exercise in torture as we are introduced to 3 trashy girlfriends (Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Poitier and Jordan Ladd) who do nothing but talk and talk and talk about nothing. Where’s Quentin’s usually snappy pitter patter? It’s certainly not here. The lines are terrible; filled with expletive upon expletive that have no reason to be there other than to highlight how unclassy these girls are. They talk about sex, drugs, alcohol and not much else, although they do switch gears at times to make fun of other characters. Some plot points do come out of this minutiae, one of the girls named Butterfly (Ferlito) needs to get laid. She’s a good girl in comparison to her slutty friends but she’s still naughty enough to perform a sultry lap dance for Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) though. That’s pretty much it at this point. I must admit I did enjoy Ferlito’s performance; hers is the only one worth watching. I seriously would’ve turned this movie off after the first 20 minutes, but hey…. It’s Tarantino… so I kept watching. There has to be some sort of payoff, right? Wrong!
The film sort of picks up a bit when the girls are hanging out at the local bar and we are introduced to Stuntman Mike. We endure getting to know the characters for another half hour or so and then Bam!, out of nowhere, Mike becomes a psycho and kills off the lead girls in a matter of seconds by ramming his “death proof” car into them at top speed. Normally I would applaud a plot twist like this. Killing off what appears to be the main characters half way through the movie. Awesome! That takes balls ladies and gentlemen. Unfortunately the first half of the movie was so atrocious that I was pissed that I had spent so much time becoming familiar with these awful characters for no reason at all. To add insult to injury, the film then jumps 14 months and we are introduced to 3 new trashy girls. Ugh!
The 3 new girls are played by Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson and Marcy Harriel and to be honest, I almost found them more annoying than the first group of chicks. The action starts up in this half of the film much sooner. The girls are driving down a highway when suddenly Stuntman Mike speeds up behind them and starts ramming into them. What ensues is a blistering 20 minute or so car chase that is pretty cool, but certainly doesn’t redeem the movie. To make the chase even spicier, Zoe Bell is hanging on to the hood of the car because she was car surfing or something before Mike came barreling after them. Of course there are about 3 times that Mike crashes and the girls would’ve had time to let Zoe back in the car, but for some inane reason they never do. Things are flipped upside down however, when the girls decide to give Mike a taste of his own medicine and start chasing him after shooting him in the shoulder. It seems Mike has messed with the wrong girls. As the chase progresses, Mike begins to panic and cry like a little wimp and is so ridiculous it made me want to cry. To watch Kurt Russell act like a complete pussy sounds like fun, but it’s not.
To sum it up, Death Proof is a truly atrocious movie that cost me nearly 2 hours of my life that I will never get back. Whether it was terrible on purpose or by accident I don’t know, but either way it’s not worth watching. The only bright spot in the film was Vanessa Ferlito’s performance as Butterfly (especially the lap dance), but it certainly doesn’t redeem the movie. The only reason I scored it a 2 instead of a 0 out of 10 is because it was made by Tarantino and that carries some weight with me, but I’d avoid this one like the plague if I were you.
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2 comment(s) so far...
Re: Rewind Review - 2007 - Death Proof
So how did you like Death Proof? I'm not really clear...
I have to admit, I was really disappointed with it - although there were some sexy scenes (like that lap dance - truly a high point as you so accurately note), and I thought Kurt Russell gave a really strong performance.
And the car crash and the car chase were cool - but I cringed at watching the beauties so horribly mangled in slo-mo. I would rather have gone for a second lap dance.
I think it might have been better if seen with an audience - one of the reasons I ran out to watch Inglorious Basterds immediately.
Death Proof was paired with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror in a Grindhouse doublefeature that played in select theatres. I missed both - but on the Planet Terror DVD, there's an option to watch it with audience reaction - and it makes all the difference in the world. It also happens to be a helluva lot more entertaining that Death Proof, which always helps. In fact, I'd call Planet Terror a B-movie masterpiece.
The Death Proof DVD offers the same audience reaction mode, but it sorta goes away half way through the film - as does the grainy 1970's quality, which makes Planet Terror such a brilliant piece of "trash" (said in the most loving terms).
But my theory about audience participation adding a level of enjoyment to Death Proof might not hold up, because I saw Death Proof with a couple of friends in the comfort of a friend's home - and it was still terrible.
All I can say is -- especially after watching and loving Inglorious Basterds -- thank God, Quinten got the gunk out of his engine and cleared out of his system.
By Ange66 on
8/31/2009 2:12 PM
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Re: Rewind Review - 2007 - Death Proof
good job
By frankie72669 on
9/29/2009 1:09 PM
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