Death Proof is far from the most iconic Quentin Tarantino film, but of his catalog, it very well may be the purest distillation of his signature style. Quentin Tarantino’s movies are known for their strong characters, lavish displays of violence, and hyper-stylized slant on reality that produces an unmistakable quality infecting everything he touches.

Perhaps the single most obscure Tarantino film, if such a thing can even be conceived, is Death Proof. Billed alongside the Robert Rodriguez film Planet Terror in the double-feature Grindhouse, Death Proof has a remarkably simple plot.

Kurt Russel’s Stuntman Mike runs innocent women off the road and kills them for his own sick pleasure with the help of his custom-reinforced “death proof” cars. However, he bites off more than he can chew when he targets a female friend group willing to stoop to his level of depraved violence.

The 2007 film hasn’t left much of a legacy in Tarantino’s career, being by far the single most overlooked part of his patented Tarantino 10-movie canon. But giving Death Proof a closer look reveals it to be by far the most distilled down and lean example of Tarantino’s winning formula that has earned him so many accolades.

Death Proof Isn’t The Best Tarantino Movie, But It’s Pure Tarantino

No Other Tarantino Movie Boils Down His Style As Much

Death Proof has all of the essential elements of a classic Tarantino film on full display. First and foremost, the stunning violence present in all of his work is just as audacious as ever here, with bombastic crashes, brutal kills, and unique chases fixing all the bells and whistles audiences have come to expect from the polarizing director.

Many Tarantino films put an emphasis on the revenge fantasy, and Death Proof has one of the most satisfying vengeance arcs in any of his movies, with Stuntman Mike’s ultimate demise being simultaneously one of the hardest to watch and most brutal kills in Tarantino’s repertoire.

Both The Good & Bad Of Tarantino Film Are In Death Proof

Death Proof Is Pure Tarantino, For Better And For Worse

As beloved as they are, Quentin Tarantino’s films are far from having mᴀss appeal, and Death Proof is the perfect summation as to why. For better and for worse, all of the typical tropes ᴀssociated with the director are present, which come with their fair share of downsides and upsides.

On the positive, the aforementioned gratifying revenge-centric violence as as phenomenal as ever in Death Proof. The performances Tarantino is able to consistently coax out of intimidating actors are also all phenomenal, with Stuntman Mike quietly being one of Kurt Russell’s best characters despite how deplorable he is. The film simply oozes typical Tarantino charisma.

However, many of the common criticisms of Tarantino’s work can very easily be applied to Death Proof. For one, Tarantino might strike a fine balance in films like Pulp Fiction with “pointless” dialogue that doesn’t meaningfully move the story forward, nevertheless providing color to the characters. But in Death Proof, these kinds of conversations can go on for painfully long.

Tarantino’s Sєxually charged camera is also as ravenous as ever, ogling its female characters worse than Stuntman Mike does at times. Tarantino manages to escape culpability for this as the tale technically features empowered female characters killing a predator who would victimize them, but that doesn’t change the fact that Tarantino’s infamous foot fetish is as egregious as ever here.

Why Death Proof Has Kind Of Been Forgotten To Time

Death Proof Has Had Everything Against It From The Beginning

Despite being such a condensed and refined example of Tarantino’s signature style, Death Proof is easily the most unheard of film in his acclaimed career. Looking at the circumstances surrounding the film’s release and subsequent legacy can explain why Death Proof is so lost in the cinematic legend’s busy filmography.

For one, being packaged with Planet Terror, Death Proof was overshadowed by its more alluring sibling right from the start. Unlike Tarantino’s half-hearted commitment to making Stuntman Mike a slasher villain, Robert Rodriguez fully embraces the lunacy of a zombie-infested planet, and Cherry is one of the most iconic female action movie protagonists of all time.

Out-competed by its shared co-header in Grindhouse in both compelling female characters and pulpy horror madness, Death Proof‘s legacy was further hurt by Tarantino’s own admission that Death Proof is his weakest film. If the director himself viewed the film as a failure, there’s little chance that others could ever champion it further.

Thus, Death Proof has fallen into obscurity ever since its 2007 release, feeling like a relic of the past in both its tone and simplicity in a time in which movies were about to change forever. The more sanitized blockbusters that would follow in 2008 created a new world for popcorn cinema that Death Proof simply didn’t have a place in.

Where Death Proof Ranks Among Quentin Tarantino Movies

Rearing Up The Back End Of Tarantino’s Work

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that Death Proof is Tarantino’s worst film. There’s still a lot to appreciate about its simplistic charm, and, in my estimation, the movie actually edges out Kurt Russell’s other appearance in Tarantino’s filmography, The Hateful Eight. If Death Proof is a neat consolidation of Tarantino’s style, the drawn-out Western is an over-indulgent mess.

That being said, there aren’t any other films in Tarantino’s catalog I’d personally rank any lower than Death Proof, with perhaps Kill Bill Vol. 2 or Jackie Brown coming next at a very distant third place. Whatever its uneven legacy, there’s no denying that Death Proof is the purest, most unfettered product of Tarantino’s trademark essence.