Grindhouse: Death Proof

"Dude cut himself falling out of his time machine"

That line is pretty descriptive of this movie itself. It’s an exercise in a few specific styles of movie-making, as Quentin Tarantino loves to do. It’s not really a period movie; it’s in a modern setting but it’s made to look like it isn’t with scratchy post-processing, a black-and-white segment, and intentionally crappy transitions, coupled with a number of vintage cars. It’s almost divided into the classic three acts by the visual styles. It kind of made me nostalgic without really having seen any of the movies it’s referencing.

It does actually reference movies explicitly too, most notable Vanishing Point, which I know nothing about. It’s pretty easy to figure out that it’s a car movie though, which I guess is a little meta. That and the characters looking at the camera every once in a while. As far as plot classification goes it’s half exploitation and half female empowerment. First it’s all about pretty girls doing pretty girl things within Tarantino’s world of long conversations about sex and other sundry things, then almost the whole cast changes and it’s chicks being pretty and kicking ass. The second half is very much a car movie while the first is much more personal, which is a little ironic considering what happens at the midpoint.

The car bit gets really exciting but a little confounding; there’s a rather lengthy dangerous situation that could have been cut short pretty easily at several points, but just keeps going to maintain the action/suspense. I guess it makes sense in the context of Grindhouse. Anyway the action is pretty great and makes up for the betrayal of the first half. Kurt Russel puts out probably the best performance I’ve seen of his, although I haven’t seen much. The female cast also does a great job even with Tarantino’s incredibly long takes. Enjoyable movie.

Also, butts.