Grindhouse is made of chopped-up movies
By Theo Douglas

Once, in 1992 or so, you went to a Quentin Tarantino movie to see a movie. Now you go to see Tarantino—because you know that, sooner or later, he’ll have to show up. Like Hitchcock, except that with Hitchcock it was almost fun spotting a tubby, balding, middle-aged Waldo whose cameos centered on public transportation. And who kept his mouth shut. Tarantino does the opposite: blathering, spewing how much he knows about movies—and though we gave him a pass for that in the beginning, it’s now become all but impossible.

Because, as you’ll see in his latest, Grindhouse—and yes, you know you’ll see it—Tarantino doesn’t really make films any more. He’s made of films. He’s watched so many that something inside has short-circuited—killing not only his sense of timing, but any chance he had at originality. It’s sad, because inside Planet Terror and Death Proof, the two short films within Grindhouse, are two good, original short subjects trying to get out. That sounds like a bad thing but it’s not. Ever try to be succinct? It’s hard—too hard for Tarantino. This thing will make you wonder how long he spent editing Reservoir Dogs, and how much of it we still haven’t seen in special editions.

Grindhouse plays like every cheap and cheesy B-feature—from, say, Steve McQueen’s first feature, The Blob, through Toby Halicki’s must-see 1974 original Gone in 60 Seconds—so much so that in Death Proof, the four smokin’ female heroines (surely a Charlie’s Angels nod) discuss how much the Angelina Jolie 60 Seconds remake sucks. They should hear themselves talk; the build-up through both of these features is agonizing when we know what’s coming. It’s like Borat, which was essentially its trailer with deleted scenes. In the Robert Rodriguez-directed Planet Terror, we wait through a marathon of zombie liquifactions for the chance to hump Rose McGowan’s machine gun leg; in Death Proof, we yearn for Kurt Russell’s menacing “Stuntman Mike” to finish eating his nachos and start the engine in his Nova. And these are allegedly short films.

The plots, if you care, concern stolen biochemical weapons in Planet Terror that are turning the human race into pus-filled zombies—except some other humans (including McGowan and Freddy Rodriguez) are the antidote. And, in Death Proof, a crazed former stuntman in a ’68 Dodge Charger picks on the wrong stuntwomen in a ’70 Dodge Challenger. (Like the one in Vanishing Point.) That’s it. That’s all you need to know, and all you want to see—McGowan launching herself by firing her leg at the ground, then coming back down shooting; the drag race from hell—five or so minutes of genuinely riveting film. The rest is all rote. (Though Kurt Russell gets the best part he’s had since Escape From New York.)

Tarantino made his last great movie 13 years ago—Pulp Fiction—and it shows. When he steps away from doing everything, as in True Romance or From Dusk Till Dawn, things improve. Grindhouse suffers for his near-total involvement—even in Rodriguez’s segment, with an ending that smacks of Kill Bill: Vol. 2. It’s sad, but the very attribute that made Tarantino special—his appreciation and understanding of a genre niche the rest of us hadn’t caught up to—has overwhelmed him now he has the money to purchase his own, scarred original prints of the grindhouses’ newly minted classics.

Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs worked because Tarantino was creating something new and different. But his love for the neo-classics—and for himself—now consumes him. Grindhouse is the equation taken to its sum, with Big Kahuna Burger references and pre-scratched prints, so the film looks like it’s on its last legs. In both shorts, the sex scenes—always the most heavily traveled reels of the film—are “missing,” as if they’ve been destroyed or somehow mislaid. Tarantino even labels both halves of Grindhouse “Rated X,” using what appears to be vintage stock—and he hypes his own fake “Coming Attractions” with an original psychedelic lead-in.

Ironically, the “Coming Attractions” trailers are the best part. In Rodriguez’s Machete, Tarantino stock man Danny Trejo plays the ultimate Latino superhero—blasting his way out of every situation with a well-thrown knife or a well-aimed bullet. And in the Rob Zombie-directed Werewolf Women of the SS, the title says it all. This is a neat trick, one the grindhouse genre perfected, and which its best directors—schooled on vintage Hollywood gore and noir—matched with bleak but pointed footage. And it’s one which Tarantino now seems incapable of duplicating.

GRINDHOUSE | WRITTEN BY ROBERT RODRIGUEZ AND QUENTIN TARANTINO | DIRECTED BY RODRIGUEZ, ELI ROTH, TARANTINO, EDGAR WRIGHT, AND ROB ZOMBIE. AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE.