Retro Film Review: Death Proof (2007)

Lofty status of Quentin Tarantino as one of the most influential and successful of all living American directors today can be attested to by the high quality of even those of his films that weren’t considered his best. An interesting example is the commercial failure of Grindhouse, an experimental project in which he and his friend Robert Rodriguez wanted to give modern audiences an authentic experience of watching B-movies in cheap 1970s cinema. One aspect of this experience was the so-called "double feature", i.e. watching two films in a row for one purchased ticket. The experiment with the double feature did not exactly succeed at the US box office, so the Weinstein Company, the studio behind the project, decided to release Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof as two separate films. As a result, Death Proof was extended from the originally 90 minutes to nearly two hours.

The film's plot begins in Austin, Texas, where three young, attractive, and scantily clad girls – radio DJ Jungle Julia Lucai (played by Sydney Tamiia Poitier) and her friends Arlene (played by Vanessa Ferlito) and Shanna (played by Jordan Ladd) – are trying to relax at a local bar before a birthday party. One of the patrons is Mike (played by Kurt Russell), an ageing and scarred Hollywood stuntman who drives a specially constructed "death-proof" car. His attempt to socialise with the girls ends when it turns out that Mike is actually a serial killer who uses his vehicle as a weapon to kill girls in carefully prepared car crashes. Months later, Mike, in Lebanon, Tennessee, stalks another three attractive women – makeup artist Abernathy Ross (played by Rosario Dawson), actress Lee Montgomery (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Kim Mathis (played by Tracie Thoms). However, when it turns out that some of his potential victims – Kim and their friend Zoë Bell (playing herself) – are actually stunt girls, the hunter becomes the hunted and becomes the subject of a ruthless and bloody revenge.

The extra thirty minutes provide Tarantino with additional opportunities to show his main trump card to viewers - excellent dialogue and style. More attentive viewers will also have more opportunity to notice how much effort has been put into making Death Proof resemble 1970s films - bad sound, scratched and burned film stock, etc. For the most part, the nostalgic trip back in time works perfectly until the moment when mobile phones appear in the hands of the protagonists, thus destroying the illusion, i.e. compromising the main idea of the film.

For most viewers, however, this will probably not be much of a problem, given that along with all this comes exploitation content in the form of scantily clad female protagonists (and numerous opportunities for Tarantino to once again remind viewers of his foot fetish), explicit bloodshed, and "politically incorrect" vocabulary that, once again, prompted the do-gooders among snobbish critics to accuse Tarantino of racism, sexism, homophobia, and exploiting the basest instincts of his target audience. On the other hand, this exploitation is sometimes done in a surprisingly good way, especially in the quite impressive car race scenes.

Some younger viewers, especially those who believe that every film must look like an MTV music video, will likely be bothered by the overdrawn plot and some scenes that look like they are an end in themselves. Similarly, there will be numerous references to classics of American B-movies from the 1970s, which most of today’s audience aren’t familiar with. However, those who love Tarantino will have every reason to forgive him for this experiment.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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