Death Proof (2007)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Quentin Tarantino

Writer:

Quentin Tarantino (written by)

Release Date:

31 May 2007 (Hungary)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

A White-Hot Juggernaut At 200 Miles Per Hour!

Plot:

Two separate sets of voluptuous women are stalked at different times by a scarred stuntman who uses his "death proof" cars to execute his murderous plans.

Plot Keywords:

Stuntman | Revenge | Female Bonding | Face Ripping Off | Dark Humor

Awards:

3 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Fri. Nov. 20	10:00 PM	MTV
Sat. Nov. 21	1:00 AM	MTV

Cast

Kurt Russell	...	Stuntman Mike
Zoe Bell	...	Herself (as Zoë Bell)
Rosario Dawson	...	Abernathy
Vanessa Ferlito	...	Arlene
Sydney Tamiia Poitier	...	Jungle Julia (as Sydney Poitier)
Tracie Thoms	...	Kim
Rose McGowan	...	Pam
Jordan Ladd	...	Shanna
Mary Elizabeth Winstead	...	Lee
Quentin Tarantino	...	Warren
Marcy Harriell	...	Marcy
Eli Roth	...	Dov
Omar Doom	...	Nate
Michael Bacall	...	Omar
Monica Staggs	...	Lanna Frank

Also Known As:

Grindhouse Presents: Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (USA) (DVD title)
Grindhouse: Death Proof (International: English title)
Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (USA) (complete title)
Quentin Tarantino's Thunder Bolt (USA) (informal alternative title)
Quentin Tarantino's Thunder Bolt! (USA) (working title)
Thunder Bolt (USA) (working title)
À Prova de Morte (Brazil) (festival title) (Portugal) [pt]
A prueba de muerte (Argentina) (Peru) [es]
Ölüm geçirmez (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Boulevard de la mort (France) [fr]
Death Proof (Greece) [el]
Death Proof - Todsicher (Germany) [de]
Grindhouse - A prova di morte (Italy) [it]
Grindhouse Vol. 1: Death Proof (Poland) [pl]
Grindhouse présente Quentin Tarantino's à l'épreuve de la mort (Canada: French title) [fr]
Grindhouse: Death Proof (Finland) [fi]
Grindhouse: Surmakindel (Estonia) [et]
Otporan na smrt (Croatia) [hr]
Smrtno varen (Slovenia) [sl]

Runtime:

114 min (international version) | Japan:113 min | USA:90 min (edited version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color | Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | DTS | SDDS

Certification:

Norway:15 | Finland:K-18 | Singapore:M18 (cut) | France:-12 | UK:18 | Italy:VM14 | Ireland:18 | Hong Kong:IIB | Australia:MA | Australia:MA (2007) | Portugal:M/16 | Germany:16 | Hungary:18 | Sweden:15 | South Korea:18 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Brazil:16 | Japan:R-15 | Philippines:R-13 (MTRCB) | Spain:18 | New Zealand:R16 | USA:R (No. 43396) | Australia:MA (Original rating) | Canada:18A (Canadian Home Video rating) | Netherlands:16 | South Africa:16LV | Argentina:16 | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Austin, Texas, USA

Company:

Dimension Films

Trivia:

In the bar, there is a tank-top nailed to the wall with a samurai-character. This is the tank-top Kurt Russell wears when playing Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China (1986).

Goofs:

Continuity: Before Stuntman Mike drives crazy with Pam, they stop at a stop light and his window is up. Before he throws the pictures out the window the window is down. Stuntman Mike was never shown opening the window.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Arlene: [shouting to Jungle Julia] Hold on, I gotta come up! I gotta take the world's biggest fuckin' piss!

Movie Connections:

References Shaft (1971)

Soundtrack:

Laisse Tomber Les Filles

An exercise in self-indulgence

It's common knowledge that Quentin Tarantino, the mighty, fanboy-loving, ultra-violence king of Hollywood, "borrows" heavily from other films, especially "Grindhouse" films(aka films nobody saw in the first place), and then passes them off as homages, but nonetheless as his own work. He has a trademark style, the style of the aforementioned violence, the use of 100 plus racial epithets per film, completely random dialogue, and lots of shots of bare feet.

In "Death Proof", Tarantino gives us the ultimate in self-indulgence- an "homage" to the sub-genre Tarantino has himself created. He has somehow made a movie so bad it parodies everything that Tarantino has done in the past by taking his "style" so far to the extreme that the only possible person this movie could appeal to are Tarantino and his extremely adamant fanbase.

The film starts with four women- one of which is Jungle Julia, a radio DJ. The women go to a bar and literally talk about nothing for 30 minutes or more. They stumble across Stuntman Mike(played by Kurt Russell), who is a vicious killer in the guise of a near-elderly stuntman who worked on (gasp) old grindhouse movies! More self-indulgence! Queue the only good sequence in the film- the first kill scenes. During this scene we also get the only good line of dialogue in the entire film.

Then we find Mike on the hunt for more girls- four women who look very suspiciously similar to the first four girls. But there is a difference- these girls like old grindhouse car-related movies, and proceed to talk about them for another tedious, god-awful half an hour. Did I mention the black girl uses the n-word a lot? See, that makes it not racist.

The ending chase scene is decent, but the ending is so pathetic it makes me cry. The character of Stuntman Mike, for the one scene in the middle of the film, was so excellent, but Tarantino had to ruin him. Russell only has a couple actual scenes in the film, and it's a damn shame.

The dialogue is the true abomination here. it is so inane, so boring, so useless, and so utterly masturbatory in regards to Tarantino's trademark style, that it reaches the level of parodying it. Tarantino has finally reached a "pure" level. Gone are the days he made good movies, where the inane dialogue was entertaining and gave us insight into the characters on screen. Now, it is just a puerile string of nothingness that I could make up in my sleep. There is nothing fresh, nothing clever, nothing at all.

It's just a waste. It is so unfortunate that a gem like Planet Terror and all the fantastic fake trailers had to share screen time with this garbage.