Review of Grindhouse (2007) by Izi M — 21 Apr 2011

The Tarantino/ Rodriguez double feature Grindhouse is massively creative and must be watched in it's full form to be truly appreciated. It totally flopped at the box office but has since grown after it's retail release and even has two spin off movies that have performed reasonably well from it's in show trailers which ended up being massive hits.

Directors Edgar Wright, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie all got involved making there very own trailer to be played before and between the double feature. Planet Terror and Death Proof are done as modern films in an old B grade movie storage format. It's as if you've stored the film reels in your loft for 5 years waiting to play on the lounge projector only to find the films haven't stored well and whoever you bought them off really didn't care about the possibility of repeat business.

Surprisingly it's Rodriguez's feature that's more over the top in both it's grindhouse style and B movie performance. Scratches galore fly over the screen, with cigarette burns and scenes skip with the movie itself providing typical over the top action. Tarantino goes for a more subtle approach with an abrupt missing reel and some scratches, slight skipping and minor sound defects. The movie itself shows more of his skill for producing fantastic character dialogue in the way he can make you feel you know and understand a character, the best you can in an hour and half movie, then totally flip all your gathered thoughts and interpretations upside down. To be critical, at times, QT gets to involved in the film making process and is too heavy on the dialogue, this takes away from the project as a whole.

As two individual movies, this would be no great shakes but together in grindhouse style with trailers and effects it's a really interesting movie experience with both very different style of move cleverly complimenting one another.