Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Death Proof
2007

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Zoë Bell, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thoms, Rose McGowan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

This homage to 1970s exploitation movies was originally screened as a double bill with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. When the 190 minute Grindhouse bombed, the two films were released separately. Tarantino readded 27 minutes of footage to his half to create this, his most self-indulgent work and one of the dullest movies in the living memory. The story is set in Texas, where three young women drive to a bar and yabber on about nothing for 45 mind-numbing minutes. When they finally head home with the mysterious Stuntman Mike on their heels in his death proof car, I was so glad to come out of the stupor that the car stunts that follow felt like the most exciting five minutes ever put on film. Sadly, we're only at the halfway point. 14 months later Mike stalks another group of women in Tennessee, and we must go through the same tedium for the second time.