Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino’s dizzyingly exhilarating pastiche from the otherwise disappointing Grindhouse, represents a departure for the director, who seems to no longer be interested in telling chronologically-altered stories. Whereas Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), and Kill Bill (2003) succeeded in engaging the viewer through verbose characters inhabiting bizarre, intermittently violent narratives, Death Proof eschews any such aims, choosing instead to let the audience in on the joke. And it’s about time. Tarantino knows there is no “story” to be found inside his feverish, deliberately paced passages set in bars around Austin or in the imposing wasteland of Lebanon, Tennessee—which is very much the point. The film is, dare I say, a masterpiece precisely because of its loose feel; most of the fun, the two “big” scenes notwithstanding, comes from listening in on the random conversations of the characters, enjoying Tarantino’s pitch-perfect music choices, and, most importantly, trying to figure out just what that creepy, jacket-wearing man with the scary car is up to.
Insofar as Death Proof is about anything, it involves a stuntman (Kurt Russell) with an affinity for running girls over with what is, in his own words, a death proof automobile. Tarantino, being the visionary that he is, divides the film into two delicious slices, giving the audience two different sets of girls, both of whom will come in contact with the maniac. The first group includes a local radio DJ (Sydney Poitier) and her friends, who drive around Austin not knowing that Stuntman Mike is on the prowl. Although I don’t particularly think plot details matter in a film that has none to speak of, I won’t spoil this part, suffice it to say that our dear villain gets to verify his claims about the car. The second, and what I consider to be the better, segment takes place 14 months later, and this time the girls are, strangely enough, two stuntwomen (Tracie Thoms and Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill stunt double Zoë Bell), a hair dresser (the lovely Rosario Dawson), and a young actress in a cheerleader outfit (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Once again, the dynamic is the same, but, believe it or not, it’s all even more thrilling the second time. To say that Death Proof ends on a high note is to do Tarantino’s brilliantly-conceived object d’art a disservice; it is a gorgeous reminder of how much fun the movies can be when a director is willing to take a risk or two.
