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Death Proof [DVD] [2007] | ![Death Proof [DVD] [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dRi5OpK2L._SL160_.jpg)
| Artist: Quentin Tarantino
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Actors: Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan
Studio: Momentum Pictures Home Ent
Category: DVD
List Price: £17.99
Buy Used: £1.44
as of 21/11/2009 11:24 GMT details
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New (18) Used (20) Collectible (2) from £1.44
Seller: wantitcheaper
Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 3939
Format: PAL
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Region: 2
Number Of Discs: 2
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5060116722253
ASIN: B000W9RX9K
Release Date: January 14, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Loud, fast, and proudly out of control, Grindhouse is a tribute to the low-budget exploitation movies that lurked at drive-ins and inner city theaters in the '60s and early '70s. Writers/directors Quentin Tarantino (iKill Bill/i) and Robert Rodriguez (iSin City/i) cooked up this three-hour double feature as a way to pay homage to these films, and the end result manages to evoke the down-and-dirty vibe of the original films for an audience that may be too young to remember them. Tarantino's iDeath Proof/i is the mellower of the two, relatively speaking; it's wordier (as to be expected) and rife with pulp/comic book posturing and eminently quotable dialogue. It also features a terrific lead performance by Kurt Russell as a homicidal stunt man whose weapon of choice is a souped-up car. Tarantino's affection for his own dialogue slows down the action at times, but he does provide showy roles for a host of likable actresses, including Rosario Dawson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rose McGowan, Sydney Poitier, and newcomer Zoe Bell, who was Uma Thurman's stunt double in Kill Bill. Detractors may decry the rampant violence and latch onto a sexist undertone in Tarantino's feature, but for those viewers who grew up watching these types of films in either theaters or on VHS, such elements will be probably be more of a virtue than a detrimental factor. i--Paul Gaita/i
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 116
 Vengeance movie at its heart... March 29, 2008
J. Parsons (UK)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Yeah theres all the arty stuff and all the references to old movies and the amazing style, sound and direction. The camerawork is great, there are sexy ladies and Tarantinos performance in this one wasnt too bad. But even all of this doesn't make a great film.
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br /For the first half I didn't get it. I sat there hating Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russel) and hating the film. I thought Tarantino had missed the mark bigtime, like a lot of other people here. I sat and watched as the second half of the film built up the backstory of more characters, and then stuntman mike appears again and I feared more of the same.
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br /It was about then I realised this was a vengeance movie. I would go as far as to say one of the best of all time, only behind "Oldboy". To be frank most of the movie is just building up to the end; but what an end. Never have I hated a main character so much that the thought of vengeance, which dominates the other characters on screen, was resounding so deep within me that I was so sure the antagonist deserved what he got. To be shown a desire for vengeance like that was something no film has ever made me feel before.
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br /This movie is the pure, distilled example of how to make the audience really care about the characters on screen. There is no complex plot. There wasn't a big budget. But the raw emotion this film can invoke, if you let it, is well worth it.
Brilliant! May 2, 2008
Ani (South Wales)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I am a Tarantino fan... and I LOVED this film. Not sure why the bad reviews but its probably not the most obvious Tarantino offering to date - I wouldn't have said I watch for the violence but I found myself sitting there wondering "where IS the violence?!!" When the action does come its worth waiting for and personally I love the wordy dialogue. It's no Kill Bill but it's not meant to be. A witty and atmospheric piece well worth a viewing. Will probably have a cult following. Love it or hate it. You decide!
Twisted Tarantino January 21, 2008
Stevie G (Manchester, England)
21 out of 31 found this review helpful
Deathproof has received some negative press and pretty much flopped at the box office. Completely undeserved.
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br /Whether youll like this film depends on whether you find the dialogue in Tarantinos films a work of genius or boring and self indulgent. Because there is a lot of it here. And its much less relevant to the plot as Pulp Fiction was.
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br /The fact most characters are changed at the halfway point may not be to everyones taste either. And the grindhouse effect sometimes makes it look like a dodgy copy. But it makes the film unique, especially after a few watches.
br /By far the best thing about Death Proof is Stuntman Mike, played excellently by Kurt Russell. One last thing, the car chase finale is absolutely superb.
Probably the most misunderstood film of this decade. March 5, 2008
Jonathan James Romley (Dublin, Ireland)
16 out of 24 found this review helpful
Given the vast majority of major criticisms levelled at this film, it would appear that a large percentage of the audience has completely missed the joke, or simply, didn't find it at all amusing. With Death Proof (2007), Tarantino creates such a loving homage to a notoriously cult cinematic sub-culture that many people seem unaware of how to approach it or even how to appreciate the sheer fact that the film purposely goes out of its way to ape the style of late 60's and early 70's exploitation cinema in look, feel and content. The film isn't meant to be taken entirely seriously, but rather, is a parody and/or pastiche of the kind of films that the vast majority of mainstream audiences simply wouldn't want to see. I'm talking about films such as Two-Thousand Maniacs (1964), Ride the Whirlwind (1965), Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), Satan's Sadists (1968), Nam's Angels (1970), The Big Bird Cage (1971), Boxcar Bertha (1972), Fight for Your Life (1977) or Satan's Cheerleaders (1977); low-budget films made with often-non-professional actors, little in the way of conventional film logic, and highly controversial in terms of plot, theme and content.
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br /It also sets out to pastiche the "grindhouse" cinema phenomena, with the original idea of two films being shown as a double feature at drive-in movie theatres from state to state, with both films often being re-cut and re-edited (either to beef up the content, or to attempt to repair actual damage to the print) not by the filmmakers, but by the theatre owners themselves. This is evident in the amusing switch in title; with the film opening with the caption 'Quentin Tarantino's Thunderbolt', before awkwardly cutting to an obviously out of place title card with 'Death Proof' crudely emblazoned across the screen. This is also the explanation for the purposeful mistakes in continuity, the sloppy editing and the switch between colour and black and white, as well as the façade of severely deteriorating film stock. It's not sloppy filmmaking, but rather, a purposeful appropriation of sloppy filmmaking geared towards appealing to the kind of obsessive movie aficionado who gets the references and can appreciate the joke that Tarantino is attempting to pull.
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br /With this in mind, it seems hard to understand what people are complaining about. Do audiences actual expect this film to keep them enthralled and entertained when the vast majority of them would balk at experiencing many of the low-budget, semi-obscure films that influenced it? Hardly! The accusation here that "nothing happens" is fascicle. The fact that there is film running through the camera is proof enough that something is happening, with the hilariously bland dialog deconstructing the film in much the same way as the purposely amateurish composition, editing and sound all intended to fracture the cinematic language in the same way that Godard did; by reminding the audience that this is the film and the point of the film is to experience the sights and sounds that unfold before us. Added to this the colourful iconography, the music, the characters, the girls in tight t-shirts, the for once entirely justified performance from the man himself, all reminding us that this is a joyous, darkly comic romp in which the point is not "why?" but "why not?".
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br /The effect is reminiscent of Kill Bill (2003), which at times felt superficial or perhaps even too knowing for its own good, but still demonstrated to us the filmmaker's great use of tone, texture, colour and movement, as well as turning many people on to a whole new world of cult Japanese cinema; from the works of highly individual filmmakers like Seijun Suzuki, Kinji Fukasaku and Takashi Miike, to cult performers like Sony Chiba. Death Proof attempts to do something similar with the likes of the American revisionist road movie, the B-cinema of Roger Corman and the femsploitation subgenre of films like The Big Bird Cage (1972), Caged Heat (1975), Day of the Woman (1978) and Ms. 45 (1981); a coolly ironic series of films in which wronged women take bloody revenge in an often elaborate and over the top style, chiefly intended to give a feminist slant to the still rampant degradation and misogyny prevalent in the exploitation genre.
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br /Other reference points are more obvious as they're mentioned explicitly in the film; notably car chase cinema such as Vanishing Point (1971), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Gone in 60 Seconds (the original, not that Angelina Jolie bull-sh*t) and even Spielberg's Duel (1971). Some have complained that the film fails on account of its lack of action and emphasis on dialog and technique, but this seems churlish when you think of the films being referenced; with Vanishing Point featuring a number of cryptic, desert-set sequences in which characters talk and talk and talk, while Two-Lane Blacktop punctuates its scenes of hard driving and drag-racing with much in the way of meandering small-talk. Then we have the fact that films like Reservoir Dogs - which takes place almost entirely within a single setting - and Jackie Brown - which places emphasis entirely on character - use dialog to not only create the characters but to also tell the story.
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br /Regardless of this, Death Proof is meant as a piece of entertainment. There's no real desire here for Tarantino to prove what kind of filmmaker he is because he's already done that with the number of great films that came before. Sure, it can be seen as self-indulgent, but surely those of us familiar with the style of filmmaking being referenced here will revel in this particular kind of extravagance, loving everything from the continually inane female banter to the awesome scenes of high speed carnage. If you're not a fan cult cinema or exploitation cinema or indeed a devotee of Tarantino's work then this film really isn't going to impress you. There's no shame in that. Some films are made for a niche audience, destined to be a cult in their own right. However, for those who get it, Death Proof has the potential to be a truly exhilarating, one-off piece of filmmaking.
unexpected joy May 6, 2008
ricardo (edinburgh)
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
a friend lent me his copy ages ago but I never got around to watching it as the reveiws are generaly so bad - what a wee classic! - if you like tarantino, you'll love this - great music (as always) daft but great plot and spectacular car chases etc - up there with Pulp Fiction; though a little short. Still as it was supposed to be a double bill I'm sure when watched with the other one it'll be classed as a all time classic - just wish I could see both back to back at a cinema
Showing reviews 1-5 of 116
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