Sunday, February 04, 2018

Death Race (2008) ***1/2


Sometimes I like to work out by riding a spin bike while watching a movie. For those occasions, the film doesn't really need much in the way of plot or character development: just enough to be tolerable. The important things are fast action and upbeat music. “Death Race” is a perfect work-out movie!

Jason Statham plays Jensen, a factory worker who gets framed for murder. The private, maximum-security prison he is sent to makes money by pitting the inmates against each other in deadly car-races. Driving souped-up, armored vehicles fitted with machine-guns, smoke, oil slicks – basically all the weapons from the old Spy Hunter video game – the inmates race for the chance to win their freedom, and the audience laps it up. Jensen, a former race-car driver, is offered a chance to race, which gets him thinking about what a coincidence it is that an ex-racer would get framed for murder. With help from his pit crew (including Ian McShane, from “American Gods”), Jensen wins a series of races, while figuring out how to get revenge on those who framed him.

As basic as the plot is, “Death Race” actually manages to slip in a few surprises. The cast is also reasonably good. Statham does his normal, Jason Statham, thing. Ian McShane is actually kind of awesome. Joan Allen is a bit too mustache-twirly as the evil warden, but Natalie Martinez is fairly charming as the standard-issue, vaguely-latina hottie-in-a-crop-top. You don't watch “Death Race” for the performances, though, nor for the plot twists. You watch it for high-speed car crashes and gatlin guns, basically racing and death, and the movie delivers both in spades.

If you start googling “Death Race,” you'll find that there are a bunch of these movies. The original 1975 film, “Death Race 2000” is a cult classic. 2008's “Death Race” revived the concept, and there have been a few sequels since.


3.5 stars out of 5

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