Review of Death Proof (2007) by Tom G — 08 Nov 2012

As one would expect from one of the pair of Grindhouse double-feature movies released last year by the Tarantino/Rodriguez team, this is a violent, brutal, gritty film; but it's also satisfying sick fun in the way which viewers have come to expect from Tarantino (more on that particular phenomenon and the implications therein later).

The film begins, in the tradition of grind-house movies, replicating the appearance of scratchy, worn filmstock; false, clumsy edits (like covering an original title with an alternate one) including seemingly "missing" footage and dialogue; and garish colors (specifically those fuzzy reds so common to cheap exploitation films of the 70s). Likewise, the first-half narrative is great trashy fun which ends in a typically Taraninian orchestrated-violence climax. The narrative switches locales, and the look of the film shifts to a smoother filmstock and, after a brief monochrome sequence, colors befitting modern cinema. The characters here are similarly updated even if the fascination of antiquated mechanics is not. This is where the film briefly loses me, but it rebounds nicely for a great action-filled finale and more-than-satisfying comeuppance for the villain.

The center of the film seems a little talky: that's when it briefly loses me. Tarantino has a gift for writing great dialogue, and he obviously (1) likes to write these scenes and (2) knows he's good at it; however, this film had me feeling like I was watching an installment of some present-day, post-Camille-Paglia chick-TV show before the story found its footing again.

And QT has been accused of borrowing from other sources which verges on outright plagiarism: that's a tough call to make, but it does seem something shy of simple homage at times. Ultimately, this film came off to me as a self-conscious hybrid of Faster, Pussycat Kill! Kill!, I Spit on Your Grave, Duel, The Hitcher, Sex and the City, and The View. Sure, Reservoir Dogs lifted entire scenes from Hong Kong cinema (specifically City on Fire), but his dialogue made it accessible to me in a way that Hong Kong films are not; and this is another of QT's gifts; still another is his incredible ability to use appropriate pop-culture references (specifically, but not limited to, the perfect pop-songs on the soundtrack of his films).

When all of this is pulled together, the result is something quite extraordinary: Tarantino makes smart films which masquerade as dumb ones. His work takes in influences from the undeniably popular but critically maligned trash-genres of the past and makes them accessible to the critical elite as well as the fans of the gutter-cinema from which they sprang. They can be read as having some societal context, or they can be seen simply as crude entertainment; and this film further illustrates something I've seen in his work as far back as Reservoir Dogs, his first film and, in my opinion, the only thing in his body of work which approaches masterpiece status.

Upon seeing Reservoir Dogs for the first time, I saw it as a specifically anti-male film despite its specific appeal to the male audience: perhaps we could subtitle it "Death by Testosterone"?. A group of well-dressed men, members of organized crime (a much-idolized and iconic stereotype worldwide) are placed into an arena wherein their blatant, postured masculinity kills each other one-by-one: the ultimate rewards for being a manly, macho man are failure, betrayal, and death. The one member of the group whose masculinity is repeatedly called into question is the only one who may have debatably survived (he's also the only member of the group who succeeds in accomplishing the mission of the original crime). This viewpoint could easily be extended to encompass Death Proof and the Kill Bill movies (I'd go so far as to say that Death Proof is a chick-flick for men). I haven't seen Jackie Brown, but something tells me that this film would reinforce my analysis.

I could have rated this film 4.5 stars; but audiences and critics alike have been a little too kind to Tarantino. His films have won far too many questionable accolades; his films have likewise been the inspiration for literally hundreds of inferior (often downright lousy) uninspired crime films made by inferior directors (beginning with True Romance and Natural Born Killers, both of which Tarantino himself scripted). Death Proof is ultimately great for what it is; and it would be even better if it came with no extra baggage or history.