Review: 'Grindhouse' Is Double-Feature Whammy

'Grindhouse' (R)(out of four)

There was a time when movie-going was an all-out event. There wasn't a choice of staying home and watching a flick (unless it was on a UHF channel), so it was off to the drive-in or the movie theater for a double feature.

For the price of admission moviegoers saw two films, previews of coming attractions and, at intermission, advertisements for local diners or for the snack stand at the theater.

The flicks weren't always top-notch, and many prints became the victims of some of the low-end movie theaters they played in: missing reels, scratched prints, sometimes no sound.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez capture the feeling of the days of the grindhouse theater in their double-feature aptly called "Grindhouse," an homage to a certain genre of movie in the '60s and '70s. The movie is two grindhouse flicks in one. (Grindhouse is actually a term coined during this era which can mean one of two things, a pitch to the type of films shown, i.e. "bump and grind," or the movies being "grinded out" as they are passed from one theater to another before the days of multiple prints.)

Rodriguez's film debuts first, that is after a movie trailer for a fictional flick called "Machete," an old Mexican western unspools. The scratchy film gets moviegoers of "Grindhouse" ready for the gore and brutality they'll see in both upcoming features.

The first part of the double feature is Rodriguez's nod to zombie flicks, "Planet Terror," where a small town in Texas is besieged by a chemical that turns its residents into cannibalists and blood suckers.

Bruce Willis is the military man in fatigues responsible for unleashing the deadly venom.

Josh Brolin gives a villainous performance as Dr. William Block, a physician who appears to know the secret as to why all of his patients are now being ravaged by sores and have turned in to body snatchers. Block has his own problems. His wife, Dr. Dakota Block, has been cheating on him with a woman (Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas) and he's dead set on putting a stop to it.

When the film opens, Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) is go-go dancing in a seedy club. At the end of a wild dance on a strip pole, the camera zooms in on Cherry -- a teardrop is running down her cheek. The go-go dancer tells her boss with the flick of a finger to take a hike and Cherry Darling is off to fulfill yet another one of her unachievable dreams – she's going to be a stand-up comedian or maybe a doctor or maybe an astronaut. Little does Cherry know that by the end of the movie, she'll be called upon to save the universe.

Rodriguez's film is so over-the-top that you can either ride with it, or you can resist. It's probably more fun to go along for the ride, which sometimes feels like a crazy theme park attraction. It's one of those -- if you loved "Sin City" you'll most likely rejoice in "Death Proof."

The body count on this one is high, but it's hard to really believe the folks being killed are real anyway, since they've evolved or under evolved into a zombie state.

McGowan and Freddy ("Sin City") Rodriguez are so earnest in their will to combat the zombies that you'll laugh, cry and cheer along with them. That's if you can put yourself deep into the world in which they inhabit – a world of Texas barbecue and baby-sitter twins who carry AK-47s.

The zombie film is really the better of the double feature just because of its pace and a more solid plot.

Tarantino's "Death Proof" has too needless conversation and lots of lag time before the real fun begins. The movie basically could have achieved all it should have in 30 minutes, but we're forced to sit through over an hour of banality before the stuff gets good. Parts of "Death Proof" are when you really feel the burn of sitting through a 191-minute movie.

Kurt Russell is Stuntman Mike, a teetotaler who drives a Chevy Nova emblazoned with a skull. When Mike shows up at a Texas bar where Austin's hottest DJ Jungle Julia (played by Sydney Tamilia Poitier, yes, her dad is the real Sidney Poitier), he has his eye on Julia and her posse and, despite his sweet exterior, you know he's has something beneath his scar-faced exterior planned.

After a wild and frightening high-speed head-on collision, Mike shows that he really is a bad dude. So, who will be his next conquest?

It takes a long time to find that out, too, but it's well worth the wait as a trio of stunt girls on the open road for a little fun turns the tables on Mike. It's a white-knuckle finish to the end and well worth the wade through Tarantino's script of everyday minutiae.

Zoe Bell, who steals the show as a thrill seeker trying to find a Dodge Challenger to get her kicks with, met Tarantino when she auditioned to be Uma Thurman's stunt double for "Kill Bill." She also was a stunt double in the movie "Catwoman," but this time she not only pulls off some outrageous stunts, but she has to act as well.

"Death" is in the details, it's just that sometimes there are a bit too many of them, but other times, it's wonderfully Quentin Tarantino mayhem all the way.