The directors got the last laugh

Rating: 2/10 (10 April 2007)

Grindhouse failed to capture the feeling of the 60's and 79's B movies. I saw the film in a theater where it seemed to run much longer than 3 hours. Laughter in the audience was sparse. No one stayed through the credits. The most amusing parts were the fake trailers shown before and between the two films. The first film was a combination of Night of the Living Dead and Doom. The female lead has little of the sex appeal needed for her pivotal role. There was some good acting by secondary performers and there were so many of them. The second film was a car war starring an amusing Kurt Russell. Unfortunately, that was the whole plot for the 90 minutes. It seemed like the first 45 minutes were filled with really inane dialog from remarkably unappealing actresses. Fortunately, the women were replaced with four other actresses about midway (for no apparent reason). Unfortunately, their lines were just as inane as the first set. The theater should have made an announcement that it was OK to use cell phones during these scenes. Finally, the car war started. There was some remarkable stunt work there. It was also interesting (for about 5 minutes) to see how a new film could be made to look like one produced and abused in 1970. During the film, several B movies were mentioned, like Vanishing Point. Take an evening to watch Vanishing Point and the last film of Grindhouse. I think you will understand my disappointment in Grindhouse. In the 60's and 70's "B" movies didn't necessarily mean "bad" movies. I think the directors copped out on this film and are laughing at the audience.