Death Race
By not really focusing on any of the satirical points Roger Corman was trying to make with his ’70s exploitation film “Death Race 2000,” Paul W.S. Anderson actually has made a film worth watching, if only for the way things blow up good and people die horribly. Look, it’s still exploitive, and true, we partake in the violence vicariously in the way people do in the film, but sometimes you need a little mindless action to make the time go by. That’s where this film comes in…and comes through.
Jason Statham is the main character of the film (I could look up his name, but what’s the point really?). In the year 2012- not-so-coincidentally, the year the Mayan’s think the world is going to end- the economy has bottomed out and people are out of work the world over. Statham’s character has just lost his job at a refinery, meaning more scraping by for his wife and baby girl. But no sooner does he lose his job does his wife get murdered by an intruder, and he gets set up to where he did it. Cut to six months later. He’s sent up to the isolated prison where “the worst of the worst” reside. By no stretch of coincidence, Statham was once a race car driver, which benefits the warden (Joan Allen, clearly slumming here), who runs the viewer phenomenon Death Race from her prison. The rules are simple- five wins and you win your freedom. And there’s more than a little death involved. Statham is asked to take on the persona of Frankenstein, a four-time winner whose last driver died when Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson)- a three-time winner- took him out near the end of the race. Will Statham make the cut, and win his freedom? With a little skill and guidance from crew chief Coach (Ian McShane) and comely navigator Case (Natalie Martinez), I’ll let you figure it out.
Usually at this point in a review of writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson’s film, I surely would’ve used the words “terrible,” “unmitigated turd,” or “dung-heap of cinematic crap.” Let’s face it, the director behind such cinematic badness like “Mortal Kombat,” “Resident Evil,” “Event Horizon”- and least of all- “Soldier” and “Alien vs. Predator” has deserved his reputation. But by sticking to the basics in this film- carnage, exploitation, and basic characters in a standard plot, Anderson has made a film worth watching. That doesn’t make it good per se, just a fun way to waste two hours of your life. The concept is no better in his hands than it probably was in Corman’s, but if you go to a film called “Death Race” for some sort of critique on American society’s obsession with violence, you’re going for the wrong reasons. (And obviously forgetting the Schwarzenegger muscle-cheese fest “The Running Man” from the ’80s as well.) You go to watch hard-core action laced with imaginative gore (which this film has appropriate amounts of), sexed-up women (which other than the doable Martinez, this film has a minimum of), loud music and louder sound effects (what was that now? lol), bitchy villains (which Allen does with glee), and tough guys being tough guys (which to say the least, this film has in an abundance). OK, I’ll admit that after a strong outing earlier this year in the underrated “The Bank Job,” it’s unfortunate to see Statham go the way of stupid mayhem of the “Transporter” movies and “Crank,” but it’s also something he does really well, and he delivers the goods in this movie. And God help me, so does Anderson. His movie is trash, but it’s fun trash. Deal with it.
