I finally got around to renting Death Proof. This film features Kurt Russel as Stunt man Mike-a serial killer who uses his stunt car as his weapon. Overall the film is worth seeing-if only to see the amazing car duel at the end. On the downside, the film has far too much pointless dialog. The first part of the movie follows Stunt man Mike’s initial targets for what seems like hours of empty conversation about nothing. It is, in many ways, a relief when Mike finally kills them-at last they stop talking. In the second part of the film Stunt man Mike is stalking a new set of targets. Unfortunately, they talk even more than the first set. Mercifully, the senseless blather ends with the amazing car duel mentioned above. Having seen the uncut version, I can see why the theatrical release was cut down and released as a double feature with Planet Terror. Cutting the film down to about 45 minutes (or an hour, tops) would make for a film well worth seeing. I would recommend seeing the movie-but I would strongly suggest fast forwarding through the tedious and meaningless conversations that make the film needlessly long. Then again, the conversations do have one important impact-after suffering through them, the action that takes place seems even more intense.
I feel exactly the opposite: all that female chatter about sex and the etiquette of relations was the only redeeming feature in what would otherwise be a slasher/car chase. For all sorts of cultural and psychological reasons, dialogue full of innuendo and twists and turns is seen as empty and meaningless outside the context of a clear narrative function, because the values of theatre and character writing are deemed uncinematic. Tarantino’s dialogue is far weirder in its tone and use of contemporary slang than in any of his previous offerings. All of this is to not say much for the film. I share Tarantino’s knowledge of and obsession with the seventies.
While you do raise a reasonable counterpoint, I stick with my original assessment because:
1. The chatter was needlessly long and not particularly interesting. I admit that this is relative to my perspective of what is interesting. I don’t find people rambling on and on about such things interesting-either in real life or in movies. I do like witty dialogue. I just don’t think that the chatter in the movie was witty or significant in any way.
2. The movie was sold as a slasher/car chase film. To use an analogy, consider buying food. If I buy a bag of chips that is labeled “Cool Ranch” and it ends up being a bag of dried prunes, then I will not have gotten what I wanted. If I want to watch women ramble about sex and relations, I’d go see Sex and the City. Naturally, someone might buy that bag and be pleased by the taste of the prunes, but they probably would still prefer to get what they thought they were buying.
In any case, I appreciate your comment-it is well considered and well written.