Seen: April 20th, 2007
Format: DVD
Rating: 7
After seeing Grindhouse I read an interview with Tarantino about his segment, Death Proof. He was inspired by many driving films, several of which he mentioned. That seemed a good enough excuse for me to expand my horizons.
The DVD of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry contains trailers for a number of car based films. Most of them seemed very dated to me. Many of them looked corny, many pointless and some downright bad. By the time I got to the film I was prepared to hate it.
Then I find out Peter Fonda's the lead. I have no love for Peter Fonda. To say I hate him is inaccurate, but there's a definite negative bias. Perhaps its because I feel that his opportunities have outweighed his talent. I've seen him do a great job, but I've never felt that he was the only actor for any particular role. I feel the same way about Danny Huston.
But a funny thing happened on the way to disappointment. I actually really enjoyed this film.
It's got an interesting, but not complicated plot. It's a quirky premise, that somehow works. I've not seen the unexpected third wheel thing done this way before. Usually it's stowaways and the someone unexpectedly asleep somewhere they shouldn't be. Mary's no stereotype. She's pretty and clever, perhaps even crafty. This juxtaposition with Larry as the brains of the outfit is a nice juxtaposition.
It's filled with stereotypes, but they stay firmly planted in their brief and generally trivial roles. Other than that, there's no grand scheme, no larger issues, no message to be endured. It's a chase picture. Good guys chase not so good guys. It starts out as a getaway and gradually evolves into a personal duel. It becomes a game of cat and mouse, though we're not always sure who's playing which role.
The driving has to be mentioned. The stunts in this film simply don't stand up to the ones we see in films today. And I mean that in a good way. In the continuing quest for over-the-top, somewhere along the way the realism went out the window. It's all become a cartoon, a video game. When We watch a stunt in a current film, we think, "wow, what a great stunt" instead of "I wonder if that guy is dead". The stunts and crashes here feel real. I grimaced when one vehicle got T-boned. I wondered if the farmer was killed when the pickup crashed.
I liked this flick. It's a little rude, a little crude, but ultimately there's more here than meets the eye.
The Good: Muscle car madness
The Bad: Lime Green Charger; to the bone
The Ugly: Crime doesn't pay
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