Making Violence Artistic Has Never Been So Entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (3 May 2007)

If you have never watched a Robert Rodriguez or Quentin Tarantino movie you are truly missing out on some of the best movies in cinematic history. Robert Rodriguez having been the creator of the famed Mexico Trilogy and 2005's cinematic acclaim, Sin City team up with legendary director Quentin Tarantino (creator of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and the Kill Bill) to recreate the 70s experience of a Grindhouse.
A Grindhouse theater/movie was a theater that showed nonstop movies containing graphic violence, explicit sexuality, and much more mature thematic material. This idea, being what all of the Rodriguez and Tarantino movies are all about, was not hard to recreate for the duo, and in the process, they have created one of the best motion pictures of all time.
Giving Grindhouse a 9/10 gives me the complete right to rave about it. The film runs clear over 3 hours with two full length movies, one directed by each. Rodriguez's film runs first (Planet Terror) starring Freddy Rodriguez, Rose McGowen, Marley Shelton, Josh Brolin, and Michael Biehn as different people living in a small Texas town that unfortunately gets taken over by brain eating zombies. Planet Terror (even though only being half of the full movie) is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. Bruce Willis and Naveen Andrews co-star.
Tarantino's segment follows shortly after (Death Proff) starring Kurt Russel as Stuntman Mike, a serial killer, who uses his stunt car as his weapon and kills 20-something girls. Yes it's sick, but it's Tarantino. The doomed girls include: Sydney Tamiia Poitier (son of "Mr. Tibbs) Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Tracie Thoms (just to name a few). The unfortunate part of this segment is that it starts off very slow with uncreative, very repetitive dialogue about nothing that soon puts you to sleep, only to be awoken by an extremely graphic car crash. The segment (and the film) however, ends with a bang with one of the best final 20 mins, chase sequence, car scene, etc. in the past 100+ years of film.
Being a Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature you can basically fill in the blanks and no what to expect: violence, gore, language, and sex. Besides having two outstanding story lines and great acting, the film takes violence and gore to a new level making it symbolic and artistic. That right there, brings the film up. As the film comes to an end, the closing almost allows you to forget about the opening of Tarantino's part, but still, you can't. Therefore, 9/10