Death Proof (5 Stars)

In a recent interview Quentin Tarantino called "Death Proof" the worst film he's ever made. I agree. It doesn't stand up to his other masterpieces of cinema. But in this case Quentin's worst film is better than most other directors' best film. It's his respectful homage the the great car chase films of the 1970's and 1980's. It also has hints of "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill", which he promised to remake but probably never will. I'm still hoping he will change his mind, because he's the only director I know who is capable of doing justice to Russ Meyer's best known film.

"Death Proof" did badly at the box office, but I don't think this was because of the film itself. The marketing strategy confused today's cinemagoing audiences. It was released as half of a double bill with "Planet Terror". It was supposed to remind us of the good old days before home videos when an evening at the cinema was a main feature preceded by a B movie. Somehow people didn't get it. They're too used to seeing only one film, so when they were offered two films for the price of one they stayed away.

Kurt Russell stars as Stuntman Mike, a retired stuntman who now spends his time driving cars and killing pretty girls. He has a car that he calls deathproof, claiming that after the way he has rigged it up he can drive into a brick wall at 120 mph and survive. In the first half of the film we see him stalking four beautiful girls, then crashing his car head on into theirs. They all die, he survives. Of course he does; his car is deathproof.

14 months later he's on the road again. This time he's stalking three girls who are members of a film crew. But two of the girls are stuntwomen, so he's bitten off more than he can chew.

If this was Tarantino's worst film, how could he have made it better? The main improvement would have been a longer car chase. This was the main point of the film, after all. Instead of a 20-minute chase it should have lasted 60 minutes. More cars could have been involved, maybe even police cars, and we could have had a few explosions. But whatever else he did, Tarantino should have made the car chase long enough to get himself a place in the record books.

"Death Proof" is an affirmation of Tarantino's foot fetish. He shows close ups of toes in all his films, but never as many as in this one.

Click here to view the trailer. It's not a very good trailer, official or not. Sorry. They should let Tarantino make his own trailers.