In Cannes last night we sat down for perhaps our most anticipated movie of the festival, even though we’d (arguably) seen it before and read the full script before Christmas. That film was Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, taken out of its cosy Grindhouse home and shown here in its full two-hour format, complete with a new French title: Boulevard De La Mort! After the debacle following the double bill’s release in the US we must admit to feeling slightly nervous, after all, Cannes was where QT’s rise to cult status started (with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction), and we couldn’t help feeling he was heading for a fall by insisting on a Competition slot, in the hope of securing a rare Palme D’Or double whammy.
We needn’t have worried. Those who saw the “Joseph Brenner & Associates” redux cut will see that all the scenes that seemed to be missing really do exist and have been slotted back in accordingly – principally with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), the psycho fall guy who gets his kicks by running purty ladies off the road and into their graves. In its finished form, Death Proof still retains some of the Grindhouse trimmings: there are blips and scratches, and there’s even an entire sequence in black and white, but far from being distracting, these details become integral to the atmosphere – Death Proof is a teasing film from back in the day but made now, causing a neat disjunction between the conventions of the story and the modernity of its characters (with the exception of Mike, of course, but we’ll come to that later).
Much has been made – here at least – of this being Tarantino’s most linear film yet, which is true… ish. Death Proof is a film of two halves, but it’s by no means a portmanteau. Half of the fun is in Tarantino’s manipulation of our expectations; from the title alone and the lurid poster (“These 8 Women Are About To Meet 1 Diabolical Man!”), we're expecting something dark, so, Tarantino’s own slasher-movie talk notwithstanding, its tempting to read this solely as a serial-killer flick. But like Jaws, Death Proof is a film about anticipation, and after a menacing Jack Nitzsche-scored credit sequence the film takes its time getting these girls done with. The flavour here is female, as Austin DJ Jungle Julia (Syndey Poitier) reunites her girl posse and celebrates her birthday with a night on the town. Mike is circling them but Tarantino takes his time, and the film really benefits from more time with Vanessa Ferlito as Arlene, the typical ‘last girl standing’ from slasher lore. It’s only Arlene that gets the measure of Mike’s madness, but in true grindhouse style her gorgeous foreboding all but flies out of the window when the film suddenly lurches from horror pic to sleazerama, with a great barroom lap dance that leaves audiences and Mike alike grinning from ear to ear.
We’ll skip what Mike gets up to later: suffice to say that Mr Icy Hot is nice, not, but the real revelation of the new, long version is what happens in the second half. Although some of the controversial lengthy dialogue scenes remain untouched, Tarantino has reinstated scenes that introduce a second girl group and takes more time establishing Mike’s interest in the new arrivals, which adds a whole new dynamic, like a purring engine, revving quietly while the director indulges his trademark love of dialogue. Two other elements have been added here: more screentime for Abernathy (Rosario Dawson) and, later, in the film’s powerhouse home run, Kim (Tracie Thoms), with scenes that round out their characters so much, by the time they and their stuntgirl friend Zoe (Zoe Bell “as herself”) become a Switchblade Sisters/Truckstop Women-style rampage of revenge, the previously rushed transition suddenly seems scarily plausible.
Full plaudits go here, of course, to Kurt Russell, who motors through the film with a deceptively subtle brilliance, portraying Mike as, alternately, a dope, nice guy, a washed-up hasbeen, a cool guy and a pussy – like Javier Bardem in the Coens’ No Country For Old Men, this is about to become one of the definitive movie crazies. But however attached we get to Stuntman Mike, Tarantino’s not allowing us to get too close, and with the final, euphoric ending he subverts the slasher-flick formula with a bravura climax that sent the Cannes audience whooping and clapping into the night. OK, one person booed, some older people moaned, and a woman from Turkey didn’t get it AT ALL. But Death Proof is the film it set out to be, the film Tarantino had in his mind on the day we watched him shoot it. This is seriously entertaining American filmmaking in its prime and most definitely not the only-half-serious pastiche it could have been. There’s no seatbelt, nor airbag, no nuthin’, this is just Tarantino driving wildly under the influence. Just hang on and take the ride.
Damon Wise