Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof splits cleanly in two, and only the back half delivers. The front is a slow bar crawl through Austin. The back is a highway chase through Tennessee that makes the whole thing worth sitting through.
Trailer, via Lionsgate Play.
Kurt Russell Plays a Stuntman Who Kills Women
The setup is simple. Arlene, Shanna and radio DJ “Jungle” Julia Lucai drive down Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, to mark Julia’s birthday. At a bar, Julia reveals she made a radio announcement: a free lap dance from Arlene for anyone who calls her “Butterfly”, buys her a drink, and recites a segment of the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
Aging Hollywood stunt double “Stuntman” Mike, played by Kurt Russell, follows them there. He claims the lap dance. Arlene is suspicious — she saw his car earlier that day — but he talks her into it.
Russell plays Mike as a scarred rebel leering from behind the wheel of his muscle car, revving just feet away. The tagline calls it “a crash course in revenge.” The film is rated for action and thriller, and runs 113 minutes.
A Car Rigged to Kill Its Passengers
The first act ends in violence that lands hard. Pam, Julia’s old classmate, accepts Mike’s offer of a ride home. He takes her to his Hollywood stunt car, fitted with a roll cage, and tells her the car is “death proof” — though the protection only covers him.
He floors it, then brakes hard. Pam’s skull hits the dashboard and she dies. He catches up with the women’s car and hits it head-on at high speed, killing them. Mike walks away with no serious injury.
Texas Ranger McGraw believes Mike killed the women intentionally. But because Mike was sober while the women were intoxicated, he cannot be charged. That detail is the film’s coldest idea: the law fails not through corruption but through paperwork.
Fourteen Months Later, a Dodge Challenger
Fourteen months pass. Three young women — makeup artist Abernathy Ross, stunt driver Kim Mathis and actress Lee Montgomery — drive through Lebanon, Tennessee on break from a film shoot. They stop at a convenience store, where Mike watches them from his car.
They pick up their friend, stuntwoman Zoë Bell, from the airport while Mike photographs them, unaware. Zoë tells them she wants to test-drive a 1970 Dodge Challenger, the same type of car from the 1971 film Vanishing Point, and has found one for sale nearby. The owner, Jasper, lets them test-drive it unsupervised.
This is where Death Proof stops idling. Bell, playing a version of herself, does her own stunt work, and the film’s second half is a sustained car chase that earns its runtime. The reversal is clean: the hunter becomes the hunted, and the women behind the wheel are the ones with the skills to finish it.
What the Grindhouse Release Cost the Film
Death Proof was originally released theatrically by Dimension Films on April 6, 2007, as part of Grindhouse, a double feature that combined it with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. After Grindhouse underperformed at the domestic box office, Death Proof was released as a standalone feature in other countries and on home media.
The film received mostly positive reviews for its stunt sequences and tribute to exploitation cinema, though its pacing was criticized. That split verdict is fair. The first half is a hangout movie that keeps promising a payoff it delays too long. The second half is the payoff, and it is genuinely thrilling.
The cast is deep: Rosario Dawson as Abernathy, Vanessa Ferlito as Arlene, Sydney Tamiia Poitier as Jungle Julia, Tracie Thoms as Kim, Rose McGowan as Pam, Jordan Ladd as Shanna, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lee, and Zoë Bell as herself. Tarantino appears as Warren. Eli Roth plays Dov.
The Verdict on Death Proof
The pacing problem is real, and it is structural rather than incidental. Tarantino wrote, co-produced, shot and directed the film, and the long bar sequences are his indulgence — dialogue that builds character but stalls momentum. A slasher film that spends its first hour talking has to earn that hour back, and Death Proof only partly does.
What holds up is the stunt work and the tribute to exploitation cinema. The car rigs are practical, the crashes have weight, and the second chase is the reason to watch. Bell’s presence is the film’s best decision: casting a real stuntwoman to play a stuntwoman turns the climax into something the camera cannot fake.
What does not hold up is the first kill’s reliance on shock over suspense, and the sense that the film is two halves of different movies. The Grindhouse framing explains that — it was built to sit next to Planet Terror — but a standalone release exposes the seams.
Death Proof is a good film with a great second half, and the score reflects that split. It is not Tarantino’s best, but it is one of his most physical, and the chase earns the ticket.
6.7 of 10.
The Numbers
- Title: Death Proof
- Year: 2007
- Director and writer: Quentin Tarantino
- Runtime: 113 minutes
- Genres: Action, Thriller
- Tagline: “A crash course in revenge.”
- Theatrical release: April 6, 2007, by Dimension Films, as part of Grindhouse with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror
- Score: 6.7/10 (Rotten Tomatoes 67%)
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