Death Race

 Year 18, Day 85 - 3/26/26 - Movie #5,284

BEFORE: Back to work tonight, I've had a few days off to catch up on TV, and I pulled out the DVDs that will get me to Easter - now on my next break I'm going to have to figure out the path to Mother's Day, which will be a little over a month long, that's a bit tougher to do. Why does Easter have to move around so much? It's coming really early this year, April 5, which is why I really have to hustle right now.

Jason Statham carries over from "Killer Elite" and this is going to bring my third (?) annual Statham-Fest to a close. I sort of thought by now that I'd be left with the scraps, that these leftover Statham action films would have decreased in quality, but some of these were pretty darn good - of course, I'm kind of grading on a curve when it comes to action movies. I mean, three of them had almost the exact same plot, where he had to come out of retirement and go all one-man-army on a criminal organization because somebody close to him had been kidnapped. A couple films stood out, though, by being so over-the-top, that's not always a good thing though.  

THE PLOT: Ex-con Jensen Ames is forced by the warden of a notorious prison to compete in our post-industrial world's most popular sport: a car race in which inmates must brutalize and kill one another on the road to victory.  

AFTER: Well, it's something a bit different tonight, the last THREE Statham films all involved some form of kidnapping, and this one, well, HE's the one essentially kidnapped, he's framed for murder and then sent to prison, which feels a bit like a form of kidnapping. Since he's got racing experience, his special skills are needed on the inside - not justifying it, just explaining it. Nothing like a life sentence to clear the mind when your wife has been killed and your infant daughter is being raised by foster parents. 

Ames is about the same build as Frankenstein, or at least a racer that goes by that name who's survived a few racetrack accidents and wears a mask as a result, which is pretty convenient if you're a warden trying to replace him after he finally couldn't be put back together again. Darn, and he was just ONE win away from gaining his freedom, too... This is the kind of race that's being simulcast via pay-per-view all over the world, so crossing the finish line with your car upside-down and on fire, it's kind of encouraged, but not a great method for keeping your drivers healthy. 

So this film lands somewhere between "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Running Man", with a little bit of "Rollerball" and a lot of "Mad Max" thrown in for good measure. I'm trying to record the new version of "Running Man", but other films on cable are due to expire sooner, so I'm trying to prioritize - can't add everything at once. But I'll try to circle back to Glen Powell in that remake as soon as I can. 

Tonight's film is also a remake, I never watched the film "Death Race 2000" which came out in 1975, but it also had a character named "Frankenstein" (I almost put this film in the horror chain because of that...) and some say this film could work as a prequel OR a sequel to that film, but I'm thinking loose sequel because David Carradine played that character then and also supplied the voice of the same (?) character here. I worked on an animated film that David Carradine recorded a voice for, that was back in 2004 and I think we all got the feeling he wasn't going to be alive for much longer, but he lived until 2009.

There are also three SEQUELS to this film, all of which went to video stores and not theaters, and the only actor who carries over is Frederick Koehler, who plays Lists, the guy on the racing team who, umm, knows stuff. Damn, if I'd known there was connective tissue I could have scheduled all four films in a row, but I don't know, that might have left me in a place too far from home, and I wouldn't then get back in time for Easter. So perhaps I should just stick with the one film and not worry about the others. 

Things get worse for Ames when he figures out that not only did the warden recruit him by having his wife killed, but the killer was also an inmate at Terminal Island, released to do the hit, and wouldn't you know, he's also one of the other racecar drivers. You can practically hear Ames making that mental note to kill this guy at the earliest opportunity, and no, it doesn't take that long - like Day 1 of the race. 

The racers don't get to use their car's weapons until the second lap on each day, and then they have to drive over sword icons to activate the weapons and shield icons to activate the defense systems (smoke, oil, napalm). It's an interesting conundrum because if the cars only had weapons, then it would make no sense to be the car in the lead, because one solid way to win the race would be to drive in last place, and just blow up all the other cars ahead of yours. Ah hah, strategy - but with the defense systems then there is more motivation to be in the lead, and use the oil slick or the spike strips to neutralize the car shooting at you from behind. 

Then there's the secret weapon that the warden has built for this race, which is the Dreadnaught, a giant truck with guns, missiles and flamethrowers. However, this leads me to a NITPICK POINT: First they say that the warden is trying to make this "sport" more popular, to do what she needs to do to have drivers with fan followings, ones that might get four wins (but never five) and have loyal followers who sign up for the PPV events. But then she authorizes the release of the super-dangerous Dreadnaught truck, which is actively trying to kill ALL of the players. Aren't these actions in contradiction with each other? How can the drivers develop fan bases if they're all dead? 

Anyway, this would seem to be a vision of the future made in 2008 that was set in 2020 and, well, OK maybe things didn't really turn out the way this film predicted - we've got plenty of terrible things, but we aren't streaming prisoners killing each other, not just yet. We've got bodycam cop videos, and we've had videos of cops killing people in the streets, just not specifically murderers racing cars and simultaneously shooting at each other. So, umm, yay? This movie is just a big loud explode-y ball of nonsense and/or fun, so also, umm, yay?

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (director of "Monster Hunter" and "Pompeii")

Joan Allen (last seen in "Room"), Ian McShane (last seen in "Deep Cover"), Tyrese Gibson (last seen in "Ride Along 2"), Natalie Martinez (last heard in "Wendell & Wild"), Max Ryan, Jason Clarke (last seen in "A House of Dynamite"), Frederick Koehler (last seen in "Babylon"), Jacob Vargas (last seen in "Devil"), Justin Mader (also last seen in "Room"), Robert LaSardo (last seen in "The Mule"), Robin Shou, Benz Antoine (last seen in "Heist"), Danny Blanco Hall (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Christian Paul (last seen in "Warm Bodies"), Janaya Stephens (last seen in "The Lookout"), John Fallon, Bruce McFee (last seen in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio"), Cory Fantie, Russell Ferrier, AnnaMarie Lea, Dan Jeannotte (last seen in "RED 2"), Abdul Ayoola (last seen in "Arrival"), Ruth Chiang (ditto), Melantha Blackthorne (last seen in "The Hummingbird Project"), Shane Cardwell, Pilar Cazares, Carolyn Day, Jim Dunn, Nathalie Girard, Sharlene Royer and the voices of David Carradine (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Dick Ervasti, 

RATING: 6 out of 10 members of the Aryan Brotherhood