Death Proof (DVD, 2007, 2-Disc Set, Widescreen; Extended Director's Cut)

Death Proof is the 2nd part of director Quentin Tarantino's Grind House film. This movie is about a deranged stuntman named Mike (Kurt Russell) who uses his "Death Proof" car to kill people. It appears he has a taste for the ladies as women appear to be his favorite victim of choice.

This film is actually a 2 parter. The first follows a group of girls in Austin, Texas. This is the hardest part of the film to get through as it is mind numbingly boring! We watch the girls drive around for awhile, stalked by Mike, until they finally arrive at a couple of bars. The girls drink, talk & are hit on by a few guys. Mike is there as well. The most interesting part of this segment is when one of the girls gives Mike a clothed lap dance. It's pretty erotic, but hardly worth the pain we went through to get here. The bar closes & everybody leaves. Mike offers to give one of the girls a ride home & shows her why his car is Death Proof. He later purposely wrecks himself into the others girls' car with some amazing carnage which we get to see girl by girl! It's a memorable blood bath!

Part 2 takes place over a year later in Tennessee. Mike runs into a group of girls & decides they will make a perfect target for his next act of carnage. Again we are treated to more boredom as the girls go about their business & finally end up on a country road to look at a car for sale. 3 of the girls give it a 'test drive' while the 4th is left behind as collateral. Mike targets them, but will soon find that these girls are cut from a different cloth than he is used to & soon predator becomes prey in some amazing car chase scenes!

This film has plenty of star power besides Russell. The cast is ladened with attractive actresses like Rose McGowen, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito & Sydney Tamaii Poitier(daughter of Oscar winner Sydney Poitier) & others who have done lots of time in the horror genre as well as directors Tarantino & Eli Roth. Famed female stuntwoman Zoe Bell also stars as a main character & is given plenty of opportunities to strut her stuff!

This is a very tough film to watch because most of what is going on is very boring & hard to watch. Even the addition of a cast that features a variety of hot young actresses can not always get you through. The action segments more than make up for it & are awesomely unbelievable! Stick with it & you'll be glad you did or... just fast forward through all the boring parts! However, it should be watched start to finish at least once!

The second feature of Troublemaker Studios (the first was Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror) focuses on a disturbed ex-stuntman named Mike (Kurt Russell) who indulges on his sexual fetish that involves fast muscle cars and women.

Director Quentin Tarantino--who is at that stage of his career wherein he is entitled to make the movies that he wants--fills his film with a more than a dozen of his interests ranging from his old films, defunct televisions shows, a Robert Frost poem, rare music recordings, muscle cars, and "Big Kahuna Burgers" among others. Death Proof stalls at the onset with unnecessary back stories for characters that die almost immediately. However, the story picks up when the scene shifts to Lebanon, Tennessee, wherein Stuntman Mike's latest victims turn the tables on him after a wild car sequence featuring the talents of stunt woman Zoe Bell (as herself).

Well firstly why did you want to get this movie? Is it because you're a fan of Mr. Q? is it because you like old time movies in which the likes Hollywood doesn't make anymore (in which I mean movies that were kick ass back in the late 60's to mid 70's.)Or were you told to watch this movie because of a friend? In my case it was that last one, I was a fan of Quentin's early work but after kill bill vol 2 I was all "ah dude what the hell is he thinking!?" I wanted to see "Grindhouse" at the local Cineplex when it came out but I wasn't able to do so in a timely fashion so instead I waited around to get it on DVD...what a fool I was.

This movie is dreck, the premise starts off with some mid 20 southern gals who you kind of feel sorry for since they usually like to let out "whoo" at every moment and then get sloshed for no big reason. Our main girls here end up at a bar and start drinking that'd put W.C. Fields to shame. We then find out that there is a sociopathic stuntman named mike at this very bar downing nachos and drinking virgin mixed drinks (plot point!) And basically follows them and comes up with a real neat way to get rid of this scum. I won't spoil it for you...wait no, I should be discouraging you from seeing this tripe, and I’ll bloody well spoil it!
So then Mike finds the girls and since they are what brits would say "delightfully sloshed" he then goes down further and floors the pedal of his car that is made to be "DEATHPROOF" (hence the name of the movie) Since these boozed up bimbos don't see his black muscle car since he killed the lights and as luck would have it totally crash into old Mike's car! and be killed in the process. Now it may just be me talking since I am a sick, twisted man but the part where the girl's leg was torn out of her body and the death and destruction of the females was the best part of the movie! Shows those girls! Ha-ha

Of course from that sweet part the rest it goes down faster than a Japanese bomber on a cold December morning. After the girl's are long dead and mike's all healed up he goes back to his old hunting ways but instead of finding another group of sauced up sexpots he finds a trio of "Girl power rawr" laughable women who believe themselves to be quite tough but miss that mark by a nautical mile. At the end mike tries to do the same with these floozies but they instead beat him up, very much unrealistic as possible. I was just so tiffed I would have recommended this if good ol' Mike kills them too but they end with a beat down on his just because he tried to run them off the road ...those emotional women. Well then that's the review of this; I'll close with a STRONG RECOMMENDATION for you to not buy/look at/rent/or borrow this crap. If you want something like this may I suggest "Planet Terror"? That movie came out to be so much cooler than Deathproof, proof possible that tarantino does not know how to make a movie that is cool and entertaining at all.

J

First of all this is a "gotta have it" DVD for any true Tarantino fan out there. This is true for many reasons. This movie takes everything you have ever loved about Tarantino movies and puts it all together in one movie. You have the famous "wish you said it first" dialogue, the themed sequences of "foot" scenes (this would be what the red and yellow was for Kill Bill or the "Samuel L. Jackson" moments of Pulp Fiction), the female stars which have boys drooling and girls wishing they could be them, the ANTICIPATION, and if all else fails you have a reason to see Kurt Russell back in action. You will also get to see some familiar faces linked with Tarantino in the past as well as his fantastic soundtracks you have most likely come to love. If you are not a Tarantino fan (shame on you) then this would be the ultimate gift for someone who is. Buy it for them, watch it with them, and then buy it for yourself.

Quentin Tarantino does it again!!! This film is a play on 1970's movies and music! Kurt Russell stars as a maniac stuntman with a crazed obsession with killing beautiful women in his "death proof" stunt car!! One of Tarantino's best!!! His combination of sexy women and cars can serve as the ultimate chick flick or the ultimate man flick!! A must see, especially for any QT fan!