Grindhouse 1.5/5 reviewed by Mike

If Quentin Tarantino is known for anything, it's for predictability and self indulgence, which is precisely what this movie is all about. If you can even call it a movie. If you haven't heard, this film is actually two films. In a weird mix of attempted spoof/tribute to the old drive in double-feature exploitation films of the 70s and 80s, this movie contains two movies: "Planet Terror" by Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) and then "Death Proof" by Tarantino. In between the films is a helping of trailers to movies they "wish" they had made. But for a movie that should be a big joke--a running time of well over 3 hours had me praying to God in heaven for this thing to end.

Planet Terror is about zombies and a chick with a gun for a leg, and the Death Proof is not really about much of anything--Kurt Russel kills some people with his car, and then some of his would be victims get some payback, but that only accounts for a small portion of that films screen time. It's all done in that stupid 70s/80s style. The film is "aged" (it looks all grainy and crappy) and the actors throw out any acting ability they ever had, there's an abundance of silly zooms, etc.

My guess as to what happened here is that Quentin and Robert were sitting around one day saying, hey wouldn't it be funny if... and then, instead of letting that remain a joke, they decided to actually make stupid movies. Normally, I tend to like ridiculous B-movie stuff (like gun-legs killing zombies) but the ridiculous length of this movie killed any enjoyment I might have gotten out of it. These things are hilarious concepts--But when you're forced to sit through hours and hours of what essentially is a funny concept and nothing more, all you can think about is all the other things you'd rather be doing with your time that would be more entertaining: eating, sitting on the couch, staring blankly at a wall...

Rodriguez's film is pretty funny in parts, but would have been genius if it was half as long. The second film (aside from being possibly the most boring piece of film I've ever seen) confirms everything I've ever thought about Tarantino: he's a complete hack. Now, just for the record, let me say: I really like Reservoir Dogs. I am entertained by his other films enough to watch them, but they're hardly anything to write home about. His "style" of taking old cliches and making them cliche again is hardly what I would call good filmmaking. "Death Proof" is the ultimate expression of cliche Tarantino. The entire plot is groups of girls sitting around having conversations about nothing in particular. Remember the opening conversation in Reservoir Dogs? Try sitting through two hours of that, except this time he casts some black people so he can use the "N" Word as much or more as the "F" word. The writing is abysmal, and he just can't stop quoting his own movies. It might be funny if another director makes a joke about a "Royal with cheese" but when Tarantino does it himself, it just shows off how he's only really made one original movie in his life.

The jokes keep getting reused and get old fast. In particular, the "missing reel" trick--basically whenever there's about to be a sex scene, there's all of a sudden a strange cut, and a message pops up that says, "Reel Missing." That's pretty funny the first time it happens. But it keeps happening... Like a bad episode of Family Guy, I kept waiting for it to be smart, but sadly it never rose above the level of self-parody, rather than intelligent parody or satire of it's source material.

The funniest thing about the film is the trailers for other movies (which were made by other directors, by the way). I have the feeling that if "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" had stayed as trailers and not actual length movies, I would be laughing hysterically. Instead, I'm feeling like I got ripped off, even though I saw it for free.

All said and done, If this movie was 90 minutes or less, it would have been genius. Instead, it's an inane pile of self-indulgent inside jokes passed off as something creative. Rent it if you absolutely must see the few funny parts, but please, don't subject yourself to this.