Review of Grindhouse (2007) by Manny C — 15 May 2012

Two movies for the price of one, and what movies they are, especially when being served up by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, two maverick filmmakers with a jones for everything cinema and trashy. There's Death Proof, written and directed by Tarantino, and Planet Terror, written and directed by Rodriguez, and no it's no sucker punch. These two present two films that lets loose and doesn't pander to teflon Hollywood. Their Grindhouse is a hot dose of dirty, bloody, shamelessly lowdown fun bursting to the brim with scantily clad chicks, zombies, serial killers and deadly cars. There's literally not a dull second in this three hour-plus extravaganza, including the fake trailers that play before and between films, they being fake films Thanksgiving, Machete (which eventually was a real film), Don't and Werewolf Women of The S.S., all courtesy of directors Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright and Rodriguez himself. My favorite is still Thanksgiving, a horror flick that skewers the only holiday left that hasn't been made murderous. Amid the screams the voiceover promises 'White meat! Dark meat! All will be carved!'.

There's no resisting that and why would you try to? Tarantino and Rodriguez are enamored of the trashy grindhouse films they grew up watching in dingy theaters that used to populate Times Square and Hollywood Boulevard in the '60's and 70's. They don'tr just pay tribute to those films, they recreate the aesthetic. Each film comes with simulated scratches and pops, even missing scenes, all of it to give the effect of watching a film worn and battered by time. They also aren't shy about the sex and violence either. It's almost irresponsibly violent. The great Pauline Kael once wrote that ' Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize...Movies so rarely are great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them.' Grindhouse reaffirms the truth of that statement and then some.

First up is Rodriguez's Planet Terror, which kicks off with Rose McGowan pole-dancing as the camera zooms in to catch the fall of an ambiguous tear. MGowan kick major ass as Cherry Darling, a stripper with aspirations to become a stand-up comedian. In a single night in a quiet Texas town, creatures of the night rise up and wreak terror, and so Cherry has her leg gnawed off by a zombie. The zombies are actually victims of a government chemical experiment gone awry, a mad experiment led by Bruce Willis and his henchman which includes Tarantino himself, who doesn't find Cherry's missing leg a turn off ('Easier access'). Lucky for Cherry though, her on true love, Wray (Freddy Rodriguez, hot), hooks her up with a machine gun limb that comes in handy when killing zombies.

That's not the end of it. At the town hospital, Dr. Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) discovers her plan to run away with her lesbian lover (Fergie) has caught wind of her nefarious doctor husband (Josh Brolin, scary as fuck).

From there it's Rodriguez trying to outdo himself with one gross out after another, everything from eyes being gouged out to a literal jar of testicles. Shooting digitally, and serving as his own cinematographer, lets you feel his sheer joy and glee. There' no dramatic heft in Planet Terror. It's all a whoosh, topped off by the iconic image of McGowan and her machine gun leg.

Then there's Tarantino's Death Proof, which doesn't quite wear its exploitation on its sleeve like Planet Terror. Tarantino subverts the entire genre and aesthetic. We are first introduced to a muscle car driven by a mad serial killer known as Stuntman Mike, played to the hammy hilt by a never better Kurt Russell. Mike uses his 'death proof' car to makes life hell for his chosen lady victims. After laying waste to a group of four ladies, he moves on and goes after four more women, except these ladies are not going to be easy victims. That leads to a scene that defines heart-pounding. But Tarantino spends just as much time building his characters as he does his stunts, despite the car chase scene that must go down in history as one of the great car chase scenes in all of film history.

Death Proof is filled with all of the rich hallmarks that are prime Tarantino, a compendium of sex talk, camaraderie and of course pop culture references, but there's also genuine human feeling going on here, a supposed no-no in this genre. But that's Tarantino's m.o. Death Proof opens with the sight of ten painted toes (another Tarantino hallmark), those toes belonging to Syndey Tamiia Poitier, daughter of the acting legend. She plays Jungle Julia, and Austin, Texas based DJ, and she's a real find, displaying wonderful gifts. She and her lady friends (Jordan Ladd and Vanessa Ferlito), who are all unprepared for Stuntman Mike, and it's not hard to see why. Russell is slithery and charming, leading a lovely lady into his car where he lets loose. He hasn't been so wonderfully berserk since Escape From New York.

The film is littered with movie references, particularly the Dodge Challenger straight from 1971's Vanishing Point. That car brings together four women in the film's second half, including Zoe Bell, a stuntwoman from New Zealand (she doubled for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill films), doing a film gig in Tennessee. When she spots a for sale ad she gathers her buds, a make-up artist (sassy and sexy Rosario Dawson), an actress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and fellow danger junky Kim (Tracie Thoms, so good) to find the Challenger and give it a spin. Which means strapping herself to the hood of the car as Kim speeds through deserted roads.

Except the roads aren't deserted. Stuntman Mike is afoot and from the very moment these ladies decide to fight back, and that's when Death Proof holds you in a tight grip. Tarantino makes sure you feel every death defying turn. He also makes sure you feel the characters, so vitally and artfully written. He and they make you care, showing there's more to Tarantino than a movie junky. Grindhouse is pure cinema pleasure, stooping low but not selling out (hello Michael Bay!). You can get high on movies by just watching Grindhouse.