Tarantino remains a mystery

Every film critic has their favourites, writes our Movie Blogger Carl Jones. I love thrillers, am a sucker for action heroes, and can tolerate a decent romantic comedy if it goes easy on the schmaltz.

But I've never been able to "get" Quentin Tarantino's films.

Pulp Fiction was, to me, simply OK, the Kill Bill adventures were over-indulgent nonsense, Reservoir Dogs was unnecessarily OTT, and From Dusk Til Dawn was sleazy and pointless.

So perhaps I'm not best placed to deliver a balanced verdict on his latest effort which was was, to me, a rather lacklustre, stuttering, forgettable affair.

Death Proof has a troubled history, having originally been released in America as one half of the ill-fated Grindhouse double-bill, where it was paired with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror.

After luke-warm reviews across the pond, it has been revved up with an extra 25 minutes of footage to

become a stand-alone thriller.

A celebrated radio DJ and her scantily-clad female friends enjoy a boozy night out. Moving from one bar to the next, the foxy trio catch the eye of grizzled loner Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) when they arrive at the local chili parlour.

One of the alcohol-fuelled girls gives the stranger a thrill he will never forget, but he chooses to drive home a different girl, who is glad to meet this man in shining armour: driving a black Dodge Charger emblazoned with a white skull.

Unfortunately, Mike's intentions are far from honourable and the evening heads, at high-speed, for a smashing, crunching conclusion.

But Mike screeches into a whole heap of trouble when he chooses his next victims:three feisty females who work on a movie set, and know a thing or two about teaching testosterone-fuelled men a lesson in etiquette and girl power.

This affectionate tribute to the exploitation films of the 1970s, with Tarantino's usual smattering of hip dialogue and gory violence, certainly puts the pedal to the metal in a series of absorbing crash scenes and

white-knuckle chases, but for the rest of the time the story gently smoulders in underwhelming fashion.

Russell is deliciously mischievous as the stuntman rogue, however, and Bell's brave stuntwork, perched precariously on the bonnet of a fast-moving Dodge Challenger, is impressive.

But as a big screen thriller, this falls comfortably into the take-it-or-leave-it category.

* Two movies were shot in Shropshire last year - one was Atonement, the other was dreadful.

On DVD from next week, you can view the latter, no-nonsense revenge thriller Straightheads.

Gillian Anderson attends a posh bash with her new boyfriend (Danny Dyer), but on the way home their car is forced off the road and she is gang raped. When she learns where the culprits live, she dedicates her life to exacting bloody revenge.

A nasty, unpleasant saga which serves up violence in stomach-churning close-up, while boring us to tears.

Two Shropshire stately homes - Stokesay Court and Mawley Hall - in two totally different films both shot in our county last year. From the sublime to the ridiculous . . .