Movie Review : Grindhouse

Well, for all of you who didn't understand the context of the new Rodriguez-Tarantino project, it can be said in very few words : you get ''2'' awesome movies for the price of one, so don't leave after the end of Planet Terror.

Planet Terror, the first segment of the film directed by Robert Rodriguez, takes us to a small town in Texas where an experiment gone haywire transforms its citizens into zombies and it's up to a small group of uninfected people to fight off the zombies and to get to safety in order to find a cure.

In the performance of her career, Rose McGowan leads the way as a go-go dancer whose tough personality gets challenged by a former lover played by Freddy Rodriguez, a truck driver with a knack for killing people (He never misses!!). Probably wouldn't have been my first choice to play the character, but we can live with it. But the character who is the most fun to watch is Rapist no.2, played by none other than QT himself. He offers so many funny lines, and we watch him suffer one of the most disgusting transformations into a zombie ever put on film.

This film is rather gory, with lots of shooting and over the top gunfights, but it is fun to watch and offers a nice rendition to the grindhouse films, although the second segment offers a much better result.

Planet Terror :
Written and Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Produced by Elizabeth Avellan, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Starring Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Marley Shelton, Josh Brolin, Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey
Grade : ***/****

After the film, we are offered a wonderful treat with a segment of faux trailers directed by Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun Of the Dead) among others. These alone are worth the price of admission because they reflect the grindhouse era with great success. (After all, where else would you see Nicolas Cage as a Chinese dictator?) Keep your eye on Don't, for in my mind is the best of them all.

Then, we come to Death Proof, the QT segment. The great idea of the film, going back to the grindhouse films, is that sometimes you can cheer for the villain. In this case, the reason is so obvious : girls can talk, talk and talk to the point that they bore you out of your mind. Indeed, we are first introduced to a group of women led by a radio talk-show host who love to party and to talk about guys. They know they're hot, so they like to play around with guys to the point where one of them has to perform a lap dance to the first guy who recites her a poem. Well, into the night, they're partying at a local bar where we happen to meet our villain, Stuntman Mike, which marks the grand return of Kurt Russell (man, I miss Snake Plissken). Here, we have a fun villain to watch as he kills young women with his Death Proof car, a black Chevy Nova with a skull painted on the hood.

After he 'deals' with this group, we then find another group of women, working out of Hollywood and among the group, the great stuntwoman Zoe Bell playing herself in the film (she played Uma Thurman's stunt double in the Kill Bill films). Only, these girls don't mess around. They wanna find a 1970 white Dodge Challenger (Vanishing Point, yes?) to take a test drive, only they're into a wild ride when Stuntman Mike wants to play along. I won't reveal the rest of the plot, suffice to say that Kurt Russell gives us a wonderful performance as the villain we cheer for.

To sum up, Grindhouse is long, indeed, but it is so awesome you cannot permit yourself to leave your seat during the course of the film, so make sure you buy a small beverage and you go the bathroom beforehand, because this film offers one wild ride you'll cheer for.

Death Proof :
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Produced by Erica Steinberg, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Starring Kurt Russell, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Poitier, Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Tracie Thoms and Zoe Bell
Grade : ***½/****