Grindhouse (2007)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarentino
Written by Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarentino'
Starring Rose McGowan, Freddie Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Tracy Toms, Zoe Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Release Date April 6th, 2007
Published April 5th, 2007
Director Robert Rodriguez knows a little something about high camp. His Spy Kids movies, earnest as they were, often drifted across the line from family comedy to high camp gobbledygook. The same could be said for portions of his cult vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn; a film that wavers between horror and high camp Roger Corman feature.
For his latest feature, half of the Grindhouse double feature, Planet Terror Rodriguez takes camp well beyond Roger Corman's wildest dreams. This off the charts nutty sci fi zombie flick flies so far off the rails, in terms of camp kitsch, that it's difficult to tell if his attempt is at homage or parody.
An ex-military unit, just back from Iraq unleashes a deadly toxin that turns citizens into flesh eating zombies in Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez's contribution to the Grindhouse double feature. Rose McGowan stars as Cherry Darling, a go go dancer who aspires to be a stand up comic. Freddy Rodriguez is her ex-beau El Wray, a former sniper turned criminal. Somehow both Cherry and El Wray are resistant to the zombie toxin and with a small band of survivors set out to battle the military behind the attack.
That is a rather straightforward description of a not very straight forward effort. From interviews you get the impression that Robert Rodriguez intends to pay tribute to the low budget sci fi trash that he grew up watching. However, much of Planet Terror plays like bad parody in the vein of 2004's forgotten Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, another lame attempt at a sci fi send-up.
There are a few cool things about Planet Terror Planet, the coolest being Rose McGowan's kick ass M-16 leg. After Cherry is attacked by zombies and loses a leg El Wray first fashions a table leg, which she puts to good violent use. However, later she gets another new leg and this one has awesome firepower and makes for one very cool visual.
The rest of McGowan's performance is a relative disaster of overly arch delivery and poorly delivered punchlines. The trailers for Grindhouse played up the gun leg and the badass action elements of her performance. Watching Planet Terror you may be quite surprised how ineffectual and often in the background Ms. McGowan is.
The badass of the movie is the slight, babyfaced Freddy Rodriguez. Not the most likely action star, Freddy Rodriguez is actually an inspired bit of casting. Back in the day when this type of low budget flick was made, directors could rarely get the actor they wanted for the money they could play and often ended up with miscast leads. Rodriguez as a bad boy action stud is a cute little inside joke nod to those low budget days.
The troubles of Planet Terror fall squarely with director Robert Rodriguez who fails to establish a consistent tone of sincere homage or high camp send up. There are little touches that work, like the small role for legendary special effects man Tom Savini and the occasional use of his old school effects rather than CGI.Then there is plenty that doesn't work like most of Rose McGowan's performance and the film's many gross out moments which are so stomach turning disgusting that many will want to walk out. These gross out moments further muddy the waters of Robert Rodriguez's intentions with Planet Terror, the homage versus parody battle that unsettles the entire picture. Some of the gross out is funny; some is merely off putting.
When compared with the film it shares the double bill with, Quentin Tarentino's Death Proof, Planet Terror is an utter disaster. Where Tarentino provides sincere homage combined with highly skilled filmmaking, Rodriguez can't decide what he's doing and ends up just tossing anything and everything at the screen to see what sticks.
When it comes to Grindhouse, wait for the DVD. That way you can skip Planet Terror and just watch Death Proof.
Quentin Tarentino is the preeminent film artist of the modern era. A savant like talent who learned filmmaking by watching movies, Tarentino has turned applied knowledge into great art and even now in his tortured partnership with Robert Rodriguez on the twin bill Grindhouse, Tarentino takes his applied knowledge of low filmmaking and turns it into yet another masters class in filmmaking.
Death Proof is an homage to a certain kind of 1970's drive in slasher movie that is actually still being made today on the fringes of the straight to video biz. The film stars Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, a Hollywood stuntman well past his prime.
With the advent of CGI guys like Stuntman Mike are a dying breed and you can hear the resentment in his voice as he recounts his history in the business, back in the day when he was a double for Lee Majors! He still works from time to time but he knows that his days are numbered.
It is this resentment that may explain, in some odd way, why Mike takes his anger out on unsuspecting women. Luring them into his tricked out stunt car which he claims is death proof, Stuntman Mike intentionally crashes the car and kills his passenger. The car is only death proof if you're in the driver's seat.
Setting his sights on a verbose group of women in a bar, a radio DJ and her three friends, Stuntman Mike first seems like just another creepy patron hitting on younger girls. When they end up rejecting his advances he takes it out on them in a horrifying car chase.
Then the scene shifts to a diner in Tennessee where four different women; working on a film crew, are sitting around discussing movies and men. Abbie (Rosario Dawson) is the makeup girl, Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Kim (Tracie Toms) and Zoe (Zoe Bell) are stunt women.
Zoe is visiting and has heard that a local man is selling a 1970 Dodge Challenger, just like the one Barry Newman drove in the movie Vanishing Point, pristine condition, right down to the color and the four barrel engine. Zoe wants a test drive and something more. Little do the girls know that Stuntman Mike is nearby and wants a piece of the action.
That scene leads to one of the greatest car chases you have ever seen in a movie. Tarentino's filmmaking skills create a visceral, emotional, physical experience. These chases are as good as his dialogue which is, as usual, dense and filled to overflow with pop culture bacchanalia.
The characters in the first half of Death Proof, aside from Stuntman Mike, are a verbose and intelligent lot who have interesting, involving conversations that sound mighty familiar. Peppered with references to the Acuna Boys (Kill Bill), foot massages (Pulp Fiction) and Red Apple Cigarettes (every Tarentino film), these conversations are so inside baseball they could make Kevin Smith Blush.
I'm not saying that Death Proof is for Tarentino fans only, it just deepens the experience if you get the references. This is a terrifically smart and entertaining and exciting movie regardless of whether you are a Tarentino fan. Besides, the chase scenes are essentially wordless and are the most entertaining and invigorating part of the film.
Everything about Death Proof works. This is among the best works of Tarentino's career and one of the best movies you will see in 2007.
