‘Death Race’ or “Another shameless showcase for Jason Statham’s abs” (Review)
I like Jason Statham. I would even go as far to say that I’m a Statham fan. He’s been in a fair share of bad movies but even if the film is awful, he’s entertaining. It’s like his career is immune to the bad movies he stars in. There is just something about him. He seems like he’s always having fun with what he’s doing. They just wash right off of him. I think if anyone else had starred in ‘Death Race’, especially any one less charismatic I would have avoided it without a second thought. Truly, without Statham starring in the remake of the cult classic ‘Death Race 2000’ it would have been much lesser movie.
‘Death Race’ isn’t a film that relies on false advertising. It’s one of the few films this year whose trailer is an accurate portrayal of what you’ll see in the actual movie. It delivers on its full promise of racing, action and automobile fuelled violence. It’s a fully shallow movie-going experience, but sometimes that might be just the thing you need or even want. The narrative borders on absurd but retains just enough believability. It gets characters to the places they need to be without it feeling forced (even if it might be slightly nonsensical). I would hope no one actually went into ‘Death Race’ expecting high-art or a deep emotional drama. It doesn’t have a deep story, but ‘Death Race’ is lots of fun.
‘Death Race’ feels like a video game: it might even be the best video game movie ever that isn’t actually based on a video game. I’ve played games in the past at one time that felt like ‘Death Race.’ It featured over-the-top characters for the drivers and cars with machine gun and missile upgrades that battle against each other to get to the finish line. It was a fun game, and I think this helped fuel my enjoyment of this movie.
Jason Statham plays Jensen Ames, an out-of-work racecar driver in poverty stricken America. He loves his wife and works at a metal processing plant to put food on the table for his family. After being laid-off, Jensen heads home for dinner to his loving wife (who is completely miss-cast against Statham). After washing up for dinner (in one of many scenes where Statham manages to gratuitously show off his well-toned midsection) he comes down to find his wife murdered. Naturally, he is framed for it. This is all narrative set-up to get Statham’s character to the maximum-security prison that is run by the film’s antagonist, Warden Hennessey, who is played by an out-of-place and less than enthusiastic to be there Joan Allen.
Hennessey is in charge of “The Death Race,” which is a competition where prisoners compete against each other in what is basically car-warfare. The competition is broadcast onto a pay per view type channel that is wildly successful because of America’s desire to see carnage and destruction dealt onto one another by prisoners competing for their freedom. If someone wins five races they get to go free. The catch is most racers die horribly grisly deaths while trying to earn their freedom. Like I said earlier, just enough narrative structure to get the characters where they need to be for the action. The short and simple is that Jensen has to race for his freedom, avoid getting killed by other inmates and along the way to find out who framed him for his wife’s murder. Friends are made, hot women make an appearance for no explainable reason, villains are revealed and yes, there is lots of death racing.
‘Death Race’ is helmed by notorious B-movie director, Paul W.S. Anderson whose credits include the likes of movies like ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Aliens Vs. Predator,’ ‘Event Horizon,’ and the ‘Resident Evil’ series. Not a good catalog of movies to take credit for directing. ‘Death Race’ might just be Anderson’s best film to date. He knows how to direct fast and fun action scenes. That’s where his talent is. Not story, not character development but action and this is the place for Anderson to show that he isn’t a hack director. He’s a director who knows where his strengths are as a filmmaker and he does know how to showcase action scenes. If ‘Death Race’ had been bumped down to a PG-13 rating I don’t think it would have worked at all, but since he got the go ahead to go all out this proves to be one big display of choreographed violence.
Rounding out the supporting cast is Tyrese Gibson as “Machine Gun Joe.” It’s an odd name choice since every car has machine guns, not just him. Of course he butts heads with Statham’s character since Tyrese butts heads with every other male lead when in a racing based movie. Dead Wood’s Ian McShane plays the wise prisoner “Coach” who heads up Statham’s race team. Coach really serves no purpose except to play the prisoner that’s been in lock-up so long he doesn’t want to go into the outside world since so much has changed (cliché, I know). Basically boring the character Morgan Freeman played in ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ but more saucy.
For my own personal value, ‘Death Race’ is a fun guilty pleasure movie. It’s a short movie, so you don’t feel like you’ve wasted any of your time on it. It takes very little time to get to the racing scenes, which are wonderfully shot scenes of vehicular carnage. For myself however, the main draw is Jason Statham. You cannot walk away from any movie he’s in without liking him or at least acknowledging if even the movie was bad, he was good. If you like movies along the lines of ‘Crank,’ ‘The Fast and Furious’ movies and crave a nice disposable action movie going experience, than go see ‘Death Race.’
Dan Hacker
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Mike Davis (mcdavis)
