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Grindhouse (Frank's take)
01/05/2007 . Source: Frank Ochieng 
The mere thought of a simmering collaboration between two of Hollywood's noted flashiest and furious filmmakers is mind-boggling, says Frank. Hence, the corrosive artistry of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez certainly doesn't disappoint as their warped worlds collide in the 3-hour thumping bloodbath Grindhouse. Enthralling and exhilarating in its explosive camp-driven excess, Grindhouse is a combustible concoction that shamelessly stimulates the senses. Buy Grindhouse in the USA - or Buy Grindhouse in the UK  Heavy-handed in its grandiose, grotesque and giddy gumption, Rodriguez/Tarantino pours it on thick for the starving fanboy waiting to bask in their morbid moviemaking madness.
The imagery is as surreal as it is sadistically executed. The over-indulgence is breathtaking if not numbing in the bid for these moviemakers to present their twisted homage to the kitsch-ridden exploitation flicks of yesteryear. Dripping with dazzling visual effects, sleazy exuberance and hyperactive hokum personified, Grindhouse is devilishly exhaustive in parlaying a wickedly action-packed piece of entertainment that stings as fearlessly as an axe to a noggin waiting to be cracked. Gleefully hostile in its clichéd calculation, this tawdry enterprise is a welcoming whack job featuring a who's who of off-kilter performers willing to unleash their outlandish snippets of wayward participation.
The outrageous uniqueness behind Grindhouse is its willingness to jiggle the varying themes of horror, action films and cheap-minded titillation. Cinematically, this rousing and reckless showcase glorifies the essence of nostalgically grimy tongue-in-cheek fare where dark and dank movie-houses catered to such shock-and-mock B-movie banalities that strangely were effectively compelling.
In the case of Grindhouse's menacing makeup, it pays its celebrated yet sordid respect to a couple of genre movies from yesteryear. Actively, Rodriguez tackles Planet Terror while Tarantino handles Death Proof. This surging smorgasbord of savagery and sex is vividly vile but guess what folks ... that is an acceptable endorsement for two frivolous features in one perverse package.
Anyone that would be astonished by the usage of profane dialogue and other wildly sensationalistic trickery hedonistic helmers Tarantino and Rodriguez employ would have to be automatically clueless. This is considered a protruding poetic stamp that these artists eloquently feast on with glorified embellishment. For Rodriguez ("Sin City") and Tarantino ("Pulp Fiction"), it's safe to say that their appreciation for grindhouse cinema is infectious and enthusiastically realized. The gamesmanship of gore and gimmickry serves as the ultimate purpose for recognizing cynical cinema that shapes the calculating and creative psyche of Tarantino's/Rodriguez's copious imaginations.
In Planet Terror, Rodriguez's entry involves the invasion of zombies set to the backdrop of a retired stripper/aspiring comedian named Cherry (Rose McGowan, late from TV's "Charmed") brandishing a machine gun as a substitution for her amputated leg. Along with a male companion named Wray (Freddy Rodriguez), Cherry joins up with a group of offbeat survivors in trying to avoid the carnage of lifeless losers looking to avoid being a tasty snack of choice.
However, a military man named Lt. Mulddon (Bruce Willis) may be the weak link that ends up compromising Cherry and crew as they evade the bothersome bloodsuckers. Can Cherry and her company successfully escape the clutches of their flesh-eating foes? In addition, there are several fun-filled fake trailers that are delivered by the likes of Rob Zombie, Eli Roth and Edgar Writer, Jr. Overall, the over-the-top gruesome display of impaling and decapitations is joyously sick-minded as something to behold.
Tarantino's Death Proof finds itself not as much a scathing oeuvre as Rodriguez's enjoyably bleak blood-curdling Planet Terror but it nevertheless makes a distinctive mark as well. It's interesting that Taratino instills one of his preoccupied preferences- female foot fetishism-into his weirdly take on a trio of barefoot boob-bouncing hotties (Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Vanessa Ferlito and Jordan Ladd) avidly looking for good times.
When they happen to bump into the devious Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell)-a serial killer with fast wheels-at a local bar, the stakes become high for the bored beauties. Thus, anybody that shares Tarantino's fascination for keen-looking cars and the nakedness of pretty curvaceous gals' tootsies will tap into the guilty pleasure of the movie maven's peculiar vices. Also, look for the appearance of Tarantino's Kill Bill stuntwoman Zoe Bell (playing herself) as she figures into the manic mayhem.
As a whole, Grindhouse is ambitiously impish but intermittently uneven in its lengthy run. Whereas Rodriguez's portion of his storytelling was freewheeling and frantically haunting, Tarantino's input was inexplicably staid at key moments. The dialogue felt rather forced and never picked up the slick momentum that was quite evident in Tarantino's roguishly classic Pulp Fiction. Still, the final showdown involving Russell's Stuntman Mike as he clashes with contentious hot honeybuns Bell, Rosario Dawson, Tracy Thoms compensates for the minor sluggishness that occasionally persists.
Vigorously grinding yet exquisite in its electrifying execution, Grindhouse is a cutthroat comedy of chaos that is festively subversive. Intentionally shocking and visceral in conception, Rodriguez/Tarantino provide a turbulent tag team effort that is not always consistently on cue as a whole but radiates with opulent spryness as a brilliant action-packed spectacle. The unrelenting gross-out factor may be too much to stomach for mainstream audiences but hey...this thrusting thrill ride will dropkick one to their notable knees.
Frank Ochieng
© 2007 Frank Ochieng
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