Another Tarantino ego trip

Rating: 3/10 (21 April 2007)

Films like Pulp Fiction are one of a kind, literally. No one can duplicate the success of Pulp Fiction. Many have tried, none have succeeded. The problem with this is that Quentin Taratnino made such an auspiciously brilliant debut with Reservoir Dogs and then Pulp Fiction, that he would have a very difficult time matching the brilliance of those two films. But who would have thought he would drop so far down on the directing evolutionary chain? Jackie Brown was just okay, but Kill Bill and now his Death Proof segment of Grindhouse is so embarrassingly bad that I think Tarantino has officially lost what made him such an ingénue. This is a sad statement as no one, with the exception of maybe Spielberg, exploded onto the scene the way Taratino did. But I'm not sure if anyone has burned out the way he has either. His films are gimmicks now. They are not really true movies, but rather they rely on cheap ideas that try to show us what a genius Tarantino is. He perpetually tries to show us how much of a film geek he is and while making films that only he could love, he forgets that most of us don't give a you-know-what about how much he knows about film. All we want is a movie that we can embrace. A movie that has a story, not just a bunch of uninteresting characters sitting around calling each other bitches and then spouting off more inside Hollywood stuff that Tarantino must of had a ball with writing and then chuckling to himself as he writes things in his scripts that only he would understand. This isn't a film for Quentin, it should be made for all of us. And it's not. And this is where he has failed. I know many many people adored Kill Bill. I'm not one of the loonies that did. It was more of an ego fest from Quentin. A subliminal flipping of the bird to all of us. Quentin makes movies for himself, not for us. And if this continues, he won't be working for much longer. He got away with it in Kill Bill because the movie was split in two. If it was one film, people would have walked out of it also.
Grindhouse, as everyone knows now, is two films made in the tradition of old 70's films that apparently had little quality to them. They were just violent films with little or no film expertise exhibited by the director. In this homage to those crappy films, you have Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez making two films in the same vein. Robert's film is pretty decent as we are treated to zombies coming to kill people and then you have the gorgeous Rose McGowan getting a machine gun for a leg. This episode is at least blatantly tongue in cheek. It has a likable cast that includes Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey. This zombie flick is action packed and humorous. And as much as I'd like to go on praising this portion of the film, it's hard to remember the good things after you watch Deathproof. The film has two great scenes. Both of them involve Kurt Russell trying to kill people with his car. But once you get past that, what you are left with is a rip off of Reservoir Dogs and more inept dialogue that goes on for 20 minutes at a time and the conversation adds up to a big fat nothing. I could really care less about Pete Townsend leaving the Who to join some silly sounding band. Or how Daryl Hannah's stand in screwed one of the girls love interest. None of the dialogue fits in this movie the way it did in Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. It's sound for the sake of sound.
I get the feeling watching Quentin's recent films that he really doesn't give a damn about what his fans want. He makes films to amuse himself. And good for him I guess. If you can get paid insane amounts of money to basically go to a playground and play tag on the jungle jim all day long, then you have the perfect life. But if you are here to make movies that people want you to make, and you end up disappointing them because of your ego, then every criticism bestowed upon you is deserved. And don't be surprised if he starts to lose some of the support he has in Hollywood right now? You think two crappy films in a row can't do you in? Check out M. Night Shyamalan who also stopped making movies for an audience but more for himself. Check to see what his next movie has for a budget and how short of a leash he is on. QT could be heading down the same path to nowhere.
Grindhouse is a massive failure because Quentin's ego is about the size of Texas now. And as the cook says in Planet Terror, "best damn one in Texas," you can apply that same idiom for Quentin, but with a slight variation.
"Biggest ego in Hollywood!" One of the biggest disappointments of the year, maybe of all time.
3/10 Planet Terror- 6/10 Death Proof- 2/10