Death Proof (2007) review

Quentin Tarantino is my all-time favourite film-maker for his brilliant dialogue, his creative stories and his fantastic casting choices which all fuse together to often create a cinematic masterpiece. "Pulp Fiction", "Reservoir Dogs" and "Django Unchained" hold a spot in my personal top 20 for its incredibly entertaining dialogue, often humorous violence, endearing characters and the brilliant pacing. Going into Death Proof, I knew that this would be my least favourite Tarantino film but what I didn't know was that nothing I loved about Tarantino would be in this film.

The film focuses around a stuntman who has a "death proof" car that he uses for stunts in films. Going by the name of Stuntman Mike, he comes to the position in which he decides to use this car to chase after drunk and idiotic women and kill them.

One of the biggest mistakes made by Tarantino is the idea to kill our supposed protagonists an hour into the film. Unlike in Psycho (1960), in which the second hour picks up from the events of the first, here the story is in almost no way affected by what has happened and we as an audience are forced to take it in. What should’ve happened was having Zoe Bell and her friends being killed off early in the film and then established our main characters (who we saw in the opening hour of the film)

The first hour builds up using various dialogue sequences that unfortunately cannot capture the magic of previous Tarantino scripts. A sequence ensues with our supposed main character and her friends talking to Stuntman Mike but a few minutes later, they are dispatched. This half of the film should’ve come second, especially seeing how the events of the second half are hardly focused on. Stuntman Mike pops up and chases after another bunch of girls who eventually take him down. The film should’ve had these group of girls being taken out fairly early in the film, especially seeing how there were roles by Zoe Bell and a few others. This should’ve been a cameo role in which she and her friends are taken out by Stuntman Mike, who then proceeds to kill another group of girls after meeting them at a restaurant. This would’ve created a bit more tension seeing how our main character does have any sort of connection to Stuntman Mike. 

Tarantino’s strength has always been his dialogue which is always entertaining. He has created some of my all-time favourite dialogue but here, none of his dialogue is slightly entertaining. In previous films, we are able to follow his dialogue such as when Jules and Vincent are talking about “royale with cheese” but here, we are forced to painfully swallow 90 minutes of girls gossiping about sex and boyfriends which is neither humorous nor clever. The group of girls come off as nothing but gossip girls and in that way, doesn’t resemble Tarantino’s earlier brilliance. 

The performances itself were very disappointing, especially seeing how Tarantino is able to get the best performances out of his cast such as with Samuel L Jackson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Christoph Waltz. In fact, the only worthwhile performance is Kurt Russel as Stuntman Mike but the supporting performances are weak.

The pacing too is horrendous as each dialogue sequence takes forever to move on. In other Tarantino flicks, we are engaged with the dialogue that we lose track of time however horrible acting, terrible writing and poor directing is exposed making us simply feel the need to check out our watch. 

The only positive aspect I could say about the film is the absurd car chase sequences which definitely boost up the overall score of the film. They are long, somewhat funny and surprisingly entertaining. Though some of the most illogical decisions are made, which furiates me, the chase sequences itself were more entertaining than every other aspect of the film combined. The first entertaining scene was about 45 minutes into the film where this girl gets a ride from Mike, who brutally dispatches her. This scene brought the first energetic smile out of me for the whole film. That brought back what Catwoman said in The Dark Knight Rises. “My mother warned me about getting into cars with strange men!”

Earlier, I suggested a different way in which the story should be structured which immediately reveals Tarantino's poor directing. The dialogue itself, which Tarantino is a master of, is absolutely horrendous and the only way in which the film is somewhat enjoyable is through absurd car chases. That said, the end to the film was about as anti-climatic as a film could get and made me laugh. 

Grade- 3.5/10