Death Proof But Not Boredom Proof

  • Posted by Dan Leo
  • October 3, 2007

Kurt

Death Proof was Quentin Tarantino’s half of his and Robert Rodriguez’s homage to trashy double-features, Grindhouse (complete with some fake trailers for imaginary movies directed by some other schlockmeisters). When I saw my first internet ad for this movie I e-mailed it to a friend who shares many of my own louche tastes, saying, “At last, a movie you actually want to go to.”

She e-mailed me back with another great poster for the flick, saying: “Indeed, this movie will be hot.”

For one reason or another, having mostly to do with the odd hours I keep, I didn’t go to see the movie (on the other hand I didn’t go to see any other movies, either.) But I definitely looked forward to catching it on DVD. It promised to be good trashy fun, it had both Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan in it, why wouldn’t I want to see it?

So Death Proof has just come out on DVD, in an expanded and unrated edition, separate from Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, and with a bonus disc of special features, but minus the trailers for fake movies that a lot of people raved about. The movie is indeed trashy fun, but there’s a problem with this “expanded” business. The theatrical version clocked in at 90 minutes or less. The DVD version is 114 minutes long, and I do mean long. Apparently Tarantino put back in about a half hour of cut dialogue, plus one lap dance. I could deal with the lap dance, but Tarantino’s dialogue even when it’s good tends to run long; at his best this dialogue is fun and wild, and there’s a tension behind the absurdity, something about to happen but you don’t know what.

In the DVD Death Proof the dialogue just goes on, and on. And on. You know, like the way real people talk, which is bad enough in real life but even worse in a movie.

Three wacky chicks in a car, an actress, a stuntwoman, and a make-up artist, going out to pick up their girl-buddy at the airport. They stop at a convenience store. It is the longest convenience store stop not only in cinema history but in history, and even in herstory; it’s just plain long, because the girls talk and talk. And talk. At one point one of them just seems to fall into some sort of black hole for five minutes, solely so the other two can talk and talk and talk for those five minutes.

I’ve put in some time listening to attractive women talking drivel, and God knows I’ve talked my own share of mindless drivel right back at them, but, Quentin, in the holy name of Roger Corman, did no one grab you by the shoulders and say, “Cut to the chase”? Not figuratively cut to the chase, but — really — cut to the fucking chase. Well, apparently, no one did say this.

I watched the whole movie again a couple of nights later. It was still a half-hour too long, but oddly enough I liked the movie better this time. I think I just sort of spaced out during the boring parts, or concentrated on looking at the actresses. (There are worse things to look at than Rosario Dawson, believe me.) Or maybe I had better pot.

The action scenes are great; Kurt Russell as a psycho murderous stuntman is great; the two separate sets of stalked hottie chicks are all great; Rose McGowan is, was and will always be great. The stuntwoman Zoë Bell, playing the stuntwoman Zoë Bell, totally rocks. I loved the muscle cars smashing the hell out of each other.

And the movie has certain raffish charms which would be incidental in another movie, but in this movie are as important as nearly any other of its elements, for instance it has the best dive bar in the history, herstory, and itstory of cinema. What a dive bar. A jukebox that plays real 45s, and all the songs don’t suck. A joint where you can kick back and light up a bowl right at a table. A dive that seems to have six hottie chicks for every guy, and chances are those guys are just a couple of harmless loser dorks, unless one of them is Kurt Russell. A joint where the proprietor is Quentin Tarantino, and he’s always sending rounds of Chartreuse or Wild Turkey over to your table. A joint where you can go outside on the porch and watch the cinematic rain. I want to find this place, and when I do I will lash myself to the bar the way Odysseus lashed himself to the mast, and I will never leave.

I may be a hater, but I love the songs Tarantino puts in his movies. This one has “Down in Mexico” by the Coasters, “Jeepster” by T. Rex, “The Love You Save” by Joe Tex, “Good Love, Bad Love” by Eddie Floyd, and:

Dig it: the first pack of hottie chicks (the doomed pack, but you knew that) barreling along a country road at night, boogying down to “Hold Tight!” as performed by the immortal Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, a band which the music-geek chick says Pete Townshend almost joined, and “should have”. She’s right, too; it’s as good as almost anything on the Who’s first two albums, their last really good albums in my humble opinion, but I’m the guy who prefers everybody’s early albums to their later ones.

The even more immortal Michael Parks, reprising for the third or fourth time his role of Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, ambles brilliantly through three or four pages of beautifully wacked monologue as he ambles down a hospital corridor with his real-life and cinematic son, the almost as cool James Parks. If Tarantino finally does the right thing and does a Texas Ranger Earl McGraw movie I will go to see it even if it’s four hours long, just to watch and listen to Michael Parks do what he does. (In the meantime I patiently await the DVD release of Parks’s Then Came Bronson, the best TV show ever.)

But the DVD version of this movie — unless you are as totally enamored of his actresses as Quentin Tarantino understandably is, and unless you love his dialogue as much as he regrettably does, and unless you have access to much better pot than I was able to get — still runs a half hour too long.

If you like Tarantino’s stuff, if you dig car chases and chicks and Kurt Russell in psycho bad-ass mode, if you like songs that don’t suck, go ahead and rent Death Proof. Just make sure you have some really good weed on hand and keep your thumb near that fast-forward button.

(This has been another Newcritics exclusive, brought to you by Quinn/Martin Productions, but kindly turn to my place for only the best in contemporary grindhouse literature.)

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October 3rd, 2007
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