Outside of Prison, "Death Race" A Fun Ride

You come across a film once in a while where you just scratch your head at the title, wondering what it means or what the movie is about. Regarding a movie I'll be reviewing in the coming weeks, aptly titled College. Right there, you know it's about college. Now, you look at the latest 007 movie, Quantum of Solace and think, "what the...!" This isn't the case with Death Race. Just hearing the title, you know that a race is involved and people will ultimately die. This is a loose remake of the 1975 Roger Corman B-Movie, titled Death Race 2000. The campiness and some of the gore of the original are gone in this version.

The film takes place in 2012, where the economy is in ruins and the prisons are run by private organizations. Jason Statham stars as Jenson Ames, a hard-working steel mill worker who gets laid off after the mill he works for gets shut down. Jenson is happily married, with a beautiful baby daughter. The one fateful evening, Jenson's wife is murdered, and, in true cliche fashion, Jenson is knocked out, only to awaken that he is being charged for her murder. Now, either the Judicial system seriously sucks in the future or there isn't one, because Jenson is hauled straight to prison. The prison he gets to go to is the toughest on the planet. It's called Terminal Island and it's governed by the ruthless Hennessey (Joan Allen, bringing her ice cold stare to the plate). There, there's a popular webcast called Death Race, where the inmates compete in just that, a race to the death. Five wins and you're set free. Jenson makes friends right away with Coach (Ian McShane) and makes enemies right away with Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson), a guy whom we're told right away is gay, but they never follow up on it. It's discovered that Jenson was a former pro race car driver, so Hennessey coerces him into portraying Frankenstein, a masked racer who could be anybody, really, seeing as the original Frankenstein probably died a while ago. It seems the audiences favorite character is Frankenstein and Hennessey wants to keep him around so much, she doesn't want him to leave, even though he's already got four wins. Hennessey makes Jenson a deal, and so it begins.

There's two different sets of scenes in this film. Those on the track and those in the prison. The prison scenes are rife with cliche, and they feel they've been ripped off by other prison movies. They seem to be just fillers for the racing scenes. On the track is a different story. It's full of mayhem, excitement, everything a man needs to fuel his testosterone. The cast does a fine job, especially McShane, whose probably the film's best asset. There's enough entertainment packed in to go along for the ride.

2 1/2 stars