Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (27 May 2007)

The whole movie would have been one of the highlights of the year, but in all honestly Tarantino's segment "Death Proof" rather ruined it.
This is a long movie, and after the magnificent "Machete" and Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" I was getting fairly worn out with all the action! However up to this point is was absolutely terrific stuff.
However Tarantino's "Death Proof" was far less resolved, overly long and self important in my opinion. Kurt Russell's excels in this piece and the action (when it happens) was excellent. But the dialogue... what a load of old rubbish... QT could have easily cut 30 minutes out of this part, but seems to have felt obliged to at least equal the running time of Rodriguez's section no matter what.
When you are 2-2½ hours into a movie the last thing you need is pointless, dull dialogue which does nothing to advance the plot or the characters - I felt my attention seriously wandering and could have fallen asleep.
Both directors deserved a huge amount of credit for paying homage to and reinventing the Grindhouse genre with such enthusiasm. So many cameos and nods to great movies (like the white Challenger). It's just a shame Death Proof was not edited down more or this would have been something to rival Pulp Fiction as a piece. I've marked it 5/10 but it would have been 9/10 without the dull sections of Death Proof.