Written And Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Zoe: "So where's the maniac?"
Kim: "I shot him and his punk ass ran off."
Zoe: "You wanna go get him?"
Kim: "Oh hell yeah!"
Quentin Tarantino is one of the greatest directors of all time and also at times, a rather polarising person. As a director, he's found a niche and carved it out but often within that niche has found ways to experiment with things. The results can be varied but often enough, they're interesting to watch unfold nonetheless.
As a movie, Death Proof might be one of the less talked about films from Tarantino's filmography. It's also one of his most interesting and like both volumes of Kill Bill and Jackie Browne, it's one where his female characters are front and centre against a male antagonist where the latter eventually gets their just desserts. It's also a film of two halves with two separate groups of protagonist against a lunatic named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell).
The first group include a radio DJ named Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poiter) and her friends Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) and Shanna (Jordan Ladd) who end up in a dive bar where Julia has some fun at Arlene's expense involving a radio competition and the reciting of a Robert Frost poem. Needless to say, Stuntman Mike made an impression on the three women and got his lap dance from Arlene as a result.
However, Stuntman Mike made another impression too when he took patron Pam (Rose McGowan) into his stunt car and used the unique set up of the car to murder her while then crashing his car into Julia and her friends, killing them rather graphically to boot. On top of that, but not only did Mike survive the violent collision himself but he also managed ti get away with murdering four women with the lack of evidence.
Of course while I don't think anyone would ever hail Tarantino as a feminist writer (something which even Tarantino himself would describe himself as), his movies do eventually tend to punish the bad man of the piece and Mike's biggest mistake was thinking he could get away with the sake idea twice. Let's just say he picked the wrong of women to target during his second effort.
The women in question being make up artist Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), actress Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and stunt women Kim (Tracey Thoms) and Zoe (Zoe Bell as herself for reasons). As a group they're far more entertaining characters than the first group and unlike the first group, their encounter with Stuntman Mike does end in a much different way.
For example, there's some morning hangover banter between the foursome before poor Lee got stuck with Jasper (Jonathan Loughran) while the remaining three took the latter's car for joyriding hijinks. The same ones that involved a reckless game of ship mast and of course, them nearly getting killed by Stuntman Mike in the middle of the day.
However Stuntman Mike underestimated this group and by only trying to frighten them instead, he incurred their wrath. Needless to say, it didn't end particularly well for Stuntman Mike when the girls decided to give him a much needed lesson in manners. The last scene alone where they beat the living shit out of Stuntman Mike might be the one of the best endings for a Tarantino movie to boot. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving character.
- It wouldn't be a Quentin Tarantino movie if there wasn't gratuitous shots of women's feet and a cameo for himself. Eli Roth also briefly appeared in the first half of the movie.
- The movie was released as part of a double feature with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. A linking character to both movies would be Dr Dakota Block (Marley Shelton). Rose McGowan also played a different character in the other movie too.
- Standout music: Considering the director, the music's on point as usual but my two fave songs were Down In Mexico by The Coasters and Chick Habit by April March.
- Chronology: The first half of the movie takes place in Austin, Texas before a fourteen month time jump to Lebanon, Tennessee.
Death Proof works well as a double feature with Planet Terror but also well enough on it's own. It's not Top 5 Tarantino movie but it's one that I would put higher than some of his other more successful ones and one I find surprisingly underrated. It's also very talky but that's par for the course with this particular director though.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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