Death Proof

Gloriously offensive on almost every count, Tarantino's sixth film continues in the same vein as Kill Bill. Whilst the latter movie homaged Bruce Lee and Westerns, Death Proof plays as a violent, leery tribute to the grindhouse pictures of the 70s. The story is slim. Three nubile young women go out drinking, pursued by Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike, an old dude with a "death proof" car that he uses to crash into cars full of pretty Southern gals. The same story is then played out again, only this time the girls fight back, eventually beating Stuntman Mike at his own game.

The dialogue couldn't have come from anyone other than Tarantino; it's sweary, sassy and full of pop culture references. The violence is, predictably, a mixture of the cartoonish and the gory, and the crash sequence in the film's mid-section is particularly shocking, even by QT's standards. Death Proof's mysogyny is underlined with tongue-in-cheek humour and larger-than-life turns from the likes of Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan (especially memorable in a small supporting role) and real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell. It's likely to offend several viewers and offers further proof that Tarantino is a one-trick pony, endlessly recycling old ideas and offering up sexism and hyper-violence as irony. However, the movie's sheer relentlessness, dynamic stunts, staccato dialogue and sense of unadulterated glee are often exhilirating and fans of Tarantino's previous films are sure to lap this up. As they should.