Burning cars spin through the air in slow motion. A man’s body slams against a wall as he falls out of a speeding vehicle. It’s bloody, and it’s brutal.
So all in all, Death Race is a vintage summer action flick.
And that’s fitting, seeing as the film is a remake of the 1975 cult classic, Death Race 2000. With Paul W.S. Anderson (AVP: Alien vs. Predator) at the helm and Tyrese Gibson (Transformers) and budding action star Jason Statham (The Bank Job) stepping in for the original movie’s leads, David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, Death Race is all about the splatters of blood and unnecessary explosions.
There is little to no character development or underlying themes to speak of, but would you really expect any? This movie’s audience comes wanting to see someone’s head get knocked off by a machine gun-wielding automobile – and Anderson delivers (three times, actually).
Set years after the utter collapse of the U.S. economy in 2012 (heads up on that, by the way), Death Race centers around the corrupt correctional facilities that private corporations run for profit.
Since audiences grew weary of the standard entertainment, these prisons provide a new type of diversion: death races. Available to watch online for a subscription fee, armed cars accelerate around the track in a three-day contest to cross the finish line alive.
The visual stylings of Anderson’s bleak post-industrial world are certainly worth noting – the 43-year-old writer and director paints the shadowed world in blacks and grays while keeping the sun notably absent.
The story’s hero is Jensen Ames (the perpetually typecast Statham), a diligent laborer whose idealistic lifestyle with a growing family is cut short when a burglar frames him for murdering his wife.
Sentenced to a life term, Ames is on the prison grounds for just hours when the scheming Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen, The Bourne Ultimatum) approaches him with a proposal: Race under the fan-favorite pseudonym Frankenstein and win his freedom.
Wearing the trademark mask of the previous Frankenstein, Ames attempts to win the death race by outlasting his rival, Machine Gun Joe (Gibson), with the help of his navigator, Case (Natalie Martinez, Saints & Sinners), and his mentor, Coach (the excellent Ian McShane of Deadwood fame).
To truly appreciate Death Race, one needs to realize what it is intended to be: a cultural satire. Criticizing modern audiences’ desire for raw aggression, Anderson plays up those popular desires to the extreme. At one point, the broadcast says it costs $250 to see a death race live. Yet, in a world where Ames made less than $3 an hour, more than 70 million people tune in.
Coach even muses how “it’s all about fast cars and pretty women,” when explaining why all the navigators are female. And just minutes later, a busload of scantily clad girls arrive to blaring music. Anderson critiques the viewers for paying to see sex and violence, but his film blatantly indulges those tendencies.
It’s ironic, but it’s also stimulating. The races are well-shot for the most part, although a few too many zooms might give you a headache. And Anderson certainly doesn’t hold back on the bloodshed: Cars crash and their drivers meet some pretty grisly demises. Death Race is not for the gentle-natured.
Still, the film certainly does have its flaws. Much of the comic relief falls flat, the profanity-laden dialogue is a bit awkward and the warden’s manipulative musings become borderline laughable. But the movie never tries to take itself too seriously, and even if there is not much more than the cheap thrills and satirical mockery, Death Race is simply too much fun to pass up.
tfloyd1@umd.edu
RATING: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
