Death Proof - review

Death Proof (18)

Dir. Quentin Tarantino

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

“Ladies we're gonna have some fun…” the name’s Mike, Stuntman Mike and I’m death proof (at least when in my mean modified Dodge Charger). The bad news is that my definition of ‘fun’ is crashing you off the road – safe in the knowledge that whereas I’ll likely walk away with minor injuries – you’ll be splattered liberally across the highway…
I’m really just your average guy – the type of grizzled loner that you might bump into in any given bar. I do like foxy women though, they gotta have some curves, gotta be sassy and ready to party. I met this one group last night who I overhead saying that they were looking for a “Kinda cute, kinda hot, kinda sexy, hysterically funny, but not funny-looking guy who they could get with” – well they certainly found me, and last I heard they were still being scrapped off the tarmac.
No, I admit, it’s not very sociable for me to go around ram raiding nubile beauties and turning them into steaming road kill but I just can’t seem to help myself. Of course I blame the script writers – and you may well too if you venture to see Death Proof because whilst I’m lined up to be an iconic antihero with a literally ‘killer’ line in cars, I’m also criminally underused (think Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode I).
This is the first of Tarantino’s five movies I’ve left feeling a bit under whelmed rather than having had my senses scorched with a zeitgeist burning overdose of cool. But it’s hard to put my finger on exactly why that is. Maybe it’s due to a criminal dearth of action? The UK version of Death Proof might not come as part of the originally envisioned ‘Grindhouse’ double bill as it did in the States but it is boosted with an additional 25mins of fairly inane dialogue. What it could have done with however is an extra 25 mins of tasty action because I’ve yet to meet an action / horror movie fan who’d rather watch two dimensional characters witter on unconvincingly rather than getting stuck in to some serious danger. Oh and the cinema owner where I saw this asked that I point out to potential viewers that the scratches, jumps in film and general fuzziness are all intentional – to help capture that original grindhouse B movie feel, seems some people didn’t quite understand though and have been complaining!?
But to sum up, Death Proof basically goes ‘Vroom, vroom, screech… splat, blah, blah, blah, blah zzzzzz.’
Shame.

Out of 5 you have to go with a weaker than hoped 2.5 (too much blah, not enough splat)...

Darkmatters ratings:
Action ööö – good but not enough
Laughs öö – couple of wry giggles
Horror ööö – splatter elements were good
Babes öööö – do the words 'smokin hot' mean anything to you?

Overall öö1/2 (could have been so much more)

Darkmatters: H O M E