Filmmakers, especially Tarantino, go off the deep end!

Rating: 2/10 (7 September 2009)

I loved Robert Rodriguez's "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" and a COUPLE of Quentin Tarantino's films that paid homage to genres/films while transcending them by being great films in their own right. But Tarantino started losing it some time around "Kill Bill Volume 2", while Rodriguez never quite received the overall acclaim and popularity that Tarantino enjoys.
This offering, GRINDHOUSE, is a two-feature presentation with various trailers sprinkled in to parody and pay homage to several B-movie genres: zombie, sexploitation, blaxploitation, alien invasion, and chick flick movies. I find both features to be lacking for different reasons.
The first one is Rodriguez' PLANET TERROR, which moves at a breakneck pace and doesn't let up. Set in Austin TX, it starts out with hot brunette Rose McGowan playing stripper Cherry Darling, who quits her job and gets run off the road by a bunch of military goons, led by Bruce Willis. Here's one of my problems: I think Tarantino goes overboard using certain actors in his flicks repeatedly and Willis in PLANET TERROR is an example. Willis doesn't really add anything special here. But Tarantino's role is even worse! Does he really have to be in this? Tarantino's PLANET TERROR role is a contender for the WORST character in both GRINDHOUSE movies and that is scary considering how bad many of the characters are in both! He doesn't work here for me and neither does Michael Parks again playing Earl McGraw from KILL BILL VOL1. So now Rodriguez has to "borrow" a character from the Tarantino film universe to populate his cast?
Willis and his military squad are bartering a trade with some scientist (Naveen Andrews) for a chemical compound that turns humans in to zombies. In trying to double-deal, the two parties battle, the compound is released, creating a town of zombies. Then its up to Cherry and El Wray (a deadpan Freddie Rodriguez, who, along with McGowan, delivers the only two decent performances in this film!) to lead the unexposed inhabitants to safety. These include the Sheriff (Michael Biehn of ALIENS and TOMBSTONE), Bone Shack owner J.T. (Jeff Fahey of WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART), and Dr. Dakota Block (a very bland Marley Shelton, the second female lead). Josh Brolin, as Shelton's jealous husband and fellow Sawbones Dr. Block, reminded me too much of a younger, surlier version of Nick Nolte with dark hair and his character was just too nasty and disgusting, and this is BEFORE he became a zombie! Actually, PLANET TERROR is too disgusting too digest (pardon the oxymoron!).
I've read quite a few reviews calling PLANET TERROR one of the best zombies movies ever...Really?! Don't know what film these people were watching! Just seemed like tedious re-tread that in no way, shape, or form really improves on what it parodies. It was TOO disgusting (the zombie look was too slimy and sickening!) and the characters all seemed to be sleepwalking through a rather thin script. I KNOW it's supposed to be a parody, but the dialogue was not funny at all and many of the characters were just kind of...there. As I said, McGowan and Rodriguez seemed up to the task if only they were given better material and better support to work with! Too bad, really.
DEATH PROOF has a lot more exposition and character detail, but it is overkill (pardon the pun!). Contrary to popular belief, the dialogue in Tarantino's best works (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Volume 1) had meaning and revealed things about the characters and went somewhere! The dialogue in his weaker efforts, including this one, DEATH PROOF, do not. It's just a bunch of girls talking about nothing. DEATH PROOF is about a serial killer Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell in the only good performance in this film). Actually in the early bar scene in the first act, I dare say that Russell's acting is exceptional! Wish the film had stayed the course with this act. Stuntman Mike kills young girls with his "death proof" stunt car. Russell, like the stars McGowan and Rodriguez of PLANET TERROR, sadly, cannot overcome bad material and a weak supporting cast overall. Actually, McGowan plays a supporting role in this flick and I liked her most of all the main females in DEATH PROOF and she had the least dialogue and screen time! Too bad her talent was wasted in these two films!
DEATH PROOF contains two sets of girls and ALL of them were unsexy and cringe-inducingly boring to listen to and most of them I found to not be attractive! Correct me if I'm wrong, but being an exploitation chick flick, aren't the "chicks" supposed to be hot?! NONE of the girls in either set is that! The first set of girls (Jordan Ladd, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Tamii Poitier) are a bunch of hip-wannabes: joint-smoking, liquor-guzzling, flip-flop-wearing twenty-something whores (frankly, that ain't sexy!). The second set (Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Zoe Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead), "Hollywood" types, are a group of non-descript, trash-talking bitties with sorry bodies! This second set was NOT attractive at all...NOT a single one! At least the first group were appealing to look at, if annoying as hell! One thing that ALWAYS attracted me to B-flicks of this sort is when they had hot women. I guess there aren't enough of them in today's world to qualify! Next time, get it right Quentin!
Overall, GRINDHOUSE winds up being self-indulgent fare. I'd say that Rodriguez effort is mildly entertaining and he did a better job of parodying his source material, but PLANET TERROR is too disgusting (and rather bland) for it's own good. Tarantino may just be on the cusp of going off the deep end though! Although I haven't like all his films, I never thought he was 100% self-indulgent. DEATH PROOF has changed my mind on that one! Yikes!