The Films of Quentin Tarantino: Death Proof (2007)

Death Proof (2007) 

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino.

Written by: Quentin Tarantino.

Starring: Kurt Russell (Stuntman Mike), Zoë Bell (Zoë Bell), Rosario Dawson (Abernathy), Vanessa Ferlito (Arlene), Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Jungle Julia), 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), Jonathan Loughran (Jasper), Marta Mendoza (Punky Bruiser), Tim Murphy (Tim the Bartender), Melissa Arcaro (Venus Envy), Michael Parks (Earl McGraw), James Parks (Edgar McGraw), Marley Shelton (Dr. Dakota Block – McGraw), Nicky Katt (Counter Guy), Electra Avellan (Babysitter Twin #1), Elise Avellan (Babysitter Twin #2), Helen Kim (Peg), Tina Rodriguez (Juana).

 

Death Proof will always be the red headed step child of Tarantino directed features – even Quentin himself has been fairly dismissive of it. And yet, despite, or perhaps because, it’s the only one of his features that feels kind of tossed together, the film is still quite remarkable and singular. The only miscalculation made here was in thinking that people would want to sit through more than three hours of Grindhouse – a pared down version of this film, preceded by a pared down version of Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror (fun, but nowhere near as good) with some cheesy trailers for non-existent movies thrown in. Grindhouse became the biggest money loser of Tarantino’s career. But as a singular film – now restored to nearly two hours instead of 80 minutes – Death Proof is great.

 

Death Proof is, like all Tarantino films this time just more baldly, a throwback to the films that Tarantino loved as a teenager – in particular, car movies (he references Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry throughout), and is a film basically sawed down the middle, both halves about a crazed killer – Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) terrorizing a group of attractive young women with his car – outfitted to make it Death Proof for the driver. In the first half, of course, he gets the best of the women. In the second, boy does he not.

 

As with all Tarantino films, he takes his time here – having dialogue scene after dialogue scene that in most movies would be pointless and drag the movie to a halt, but here, is half the fun. First, we meet a trio of girls – DJ Jungle Julia (Sydney Poitier) and her two friends, Arlene aka Butterfly (Vanessa Ferlito) and Shanna (Jordan Ladd) – out for a night on the town in a dive bar in Austin, before heading to a cabin. They drink and laugh and joke – men show up, the flirt, they do a little bit more than flirt, etc. There are also two people at the bar – Pam (Rose McGowan) who is going to need a ride home, and went to school with Jungle Julia and isn’t a fan, and Stuntman Mike himself – a few decades older than the girls, but still flirting with them – in a way that is extremely creepy, but they pass it off as an old man getting his jollies.

 

Tarantino takes his time with these opening scenes. Yes, his victims are all beautiful young women – there is even a lap dance sequence (although even in this “full” version part of it is missing) – but he doesn’t just make them gratuitous T&A lined up for slaughter – they are real people, or at least as real as the genre allows. He resets halfway through – a long dialogue sequence between two favorites of his (Michael and James Parks), cops who are suspicious of the “accident” acting as a buffer, before moving to Tennessee, and starting again. This time, it’s four women on a movie set – stuntwomen Kim and Zoe (Tracie Thoms and Zoe Bell – playing herself), makeup person Abernathy (Rosario Dawson) and actress Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) – in a cheerleader outfit. Again, though, while Tarantino sets them up at first to be the kind of beautiful young women victims we are used to seeing, he makes them into full characters. And when Stuntman Mike puts them in his sites, he has no idea that Kim is a better driver then he is, and all of them are tougher.

 

The 20 plus minute car chase that ends Death Proof is amazing – really, one of the best car chases in film history. Like the extended carnage at the end of Kill Bill Volume I, here Tarantino is both teaching himself something new, and nailing it on his first try. It’s visceral and exiting – and of course, done with practical effects and stunts. It stood as the best of its kind this century until Mad Max Fury Road came along.

 

All of this is, of course, filtered through the films Tarantino loved in the past. The look of the film has been beat up a little – as if it’s an old print of a movie that has been watched countless times. There are blips and jumps, and a scene or two missing (this is how Tarantino cut the film down to fit in Grindhouse – most of that has been restored, other than the lap dance – and even that still works as is, as Tarantino is titillating you, and then cutting away, making you think for a second about what you were watching).

 

As part of Grindhouse, the movie worked. It was fun and entertaining, and even if it felt completely tossed off by Tarantino, still recognizably his. His approach differed from Rodriguez’s – whose Planet Terror felt like he was trying to recreate those films, whereas Death Proof felt like Tarantino filtering them through his own brain. As a standalone film though, the film is remarkable – and every bit as worthy of praise and attention as anything Tarantino has done. It is a more pure version of the films Tarantino always makes – boiled down to its essentials, and wrapped in an entertaining, visceral, violent package.