I One-Up Tarantino

In my review of Death Proof, I claimed that there is a good movie to be made from the idea of a serial killer who murders his victims via vehicular homicide. And then, the other day, during a conversion with a friend about Jim Caviezel (yeah, I know: Who talks about him?), I realized that I had seen a better movie made from this idea.

Of course, I'm talking about Highwaymen, starring Caviezel, Rhona Mitra, Frankie Faison, and Colm Feore. Basically, it's the story of Caviezel, driving around the country in a beat-up Hemi 'Cuda, trailing serial killer Feore, who runs down his victims with an old-school El Dorado.

Now, I'm not accusing Tarantino of plagiarism (even if his entire career has been based on how creatively he can rip off other movies), but Highwaymen pretty much shares its plot with Death Proof. Not saying he's seen the movie, or that it's of enough pop-cultural significance to even cross his radar (the movie went direct to video, a year before Caviezel played Jesus), but, there you have it.

What's sad is that Tarantino tries to be brilliant, and come up with something clever, but, the fact is that Highwaymen, which is really not that good a movie, is approximately 10 million times better than Death Proof. It's better written, has a better developed plot, and has better action scenes (rather than just a single, 45 minute one). It's even a nice antithesis to Tarantino's penchant for stunt casting, by having the prolific and highly-recognizable Colm Feore (one of "Those Guys," who're literally in every movie, yet no one knows their names) as the killer; one starts to tire of the "clever" casting of Michael Parks after a while.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend running right out and renting Highwaymen (good luck finding it), because, well, other than getting to see Rhona Mitra topless, it's not that great. But...it's better than Death Proof. And that's all that counts.

Check it out.