Review of Grindhouse (2007) by Eric S — 21 Apr 2010

Rodriguez and Tarantinoâ??s print-damaged love letter to exploitation movies is patchy, but enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. Canâ??t imagine either film working particularly well on its own, but as a double bill (complete with fake trailers, the best of which is Eli Rothâ??s â??Thanksgivingâ??) itâ??s good nostalgic fun for anyone whose teen years coincided with the home video boom. Planet Terror is the better of the two, and delivers what it promises, though may be a little too tongue in cheek for us to care very much about whatâ??s happening; Death Proof is overly talky and self-referential (we are treated not only to a cameo by Tarantino but also, according to Imdb, one by his own personal jukebox), with curiously little action to punctuate the relentless film geekery of the dialogue. However, itâ??s still done with tremendous conviction and is not without its moments. Taking the two together as one movie, you may wonder what the point was (q.v. Stanley Donenâ??s â??Movie Movieâ??) and I have a sneaking suspicion that all this pastiche and homage may be a bit of a creative dead end, but for genre fans itâ??s definitely worth a go.

A quick note on the screening: Grindhouse never got a proper theatrical release in the UK and (at the time of writing) the films are only available on DVD individually, so a big thumbs up to the Prince Charles Cinema for showing it as it was originally intended.