Death Race: Movie Review (2008)

Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, 105 minutes, rated R.

The new Paul W.S. Anderson movie, “Death Race,” stars three-time Academy Award-nominated actress Joan Allen as the evil prison warden Hennessey, whose name evokes the hip-hop community’s alcoholic beverage of choice for good reason.

After seeing this beauty, which is laced with an aggressive hip-hop soundtrack, you might need a shot of Hennessy yourself just to settle your nerves.

Inspired by 1975’s “Death Race 2000,” Anderson’s version is set in the year 2012, and it opens with a rush of ugliness. The economy is in the can, what’s left of our culture isn’t far behind, and people increasingly are being laid off, including Jensen Ames (Jason Statham), who returns home to his wife and infant daughter with the bad news that he’s out of work. Since the movie is cocooned in a haze of male fantasy, his wife’s response isn’t to appear concerned, but to have sex, which is interrupted by their crying baby.

And then it gets worse.

After showering, Ames finds that his wife has been murdered in their kitchen, where she should have been cooking. When a masked man knocks him out cold and puts the murder weapon in his hand, it’s off to the pokey for Ames, where more trouble brews in the form of Warden Hennessey, who suggests that Ames, a former race car driver, consider taking part in the prison’s car racing game, Death Race.

Broadcast to millions worldwide via the Internet, the game is as cold and as vicious as Hennessey’s narrow gaze. Her offer comes down to this : If Ames participates by posing as some dude named Frankenstein, who was driven out of commission during the last race, he will earn his freedom should he win this race. Seeing no way out, Ames agrees.

Among those helping him are curvaceous Case (Natalie Martinez) and Ames’ crew chief, Coach (Ian McShane), who could be a free man if he didn’t suffer from a disorder that prevents him from leaving prison. Turns out that’s the film’s biggest laugh.

Working against them are Ames’ main rival, Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson), as well as a bevy of other types, such as 14K (Robin Shou), Pachenko (Max Ryan), and the grim, uh, Grimm (Robert LaSardo). The film is divided into three separate racing segments, with each man taking to their heavily armored and weaponed cars to blast the hell out of each other as they race toward their gruesome deaths. Or their freedom.

Since nobody is coming to this movie for the quality of its performances, we’ll keep this brief--Statham is exactly as he’s always been in every movie in which he’s appeared (“The Bank Job,” “The Transporter,” “Crank,” etc.), McShane knows he’s mired in manure and he looks as if he could care less, and Allen is quite good. As a brittle she-devil, she stiffens her back convincingly while staring down the sort of dialogue that, when cleaned up for this site, looks a lot like this: “@$%# *##@%$, &$$!”

As for the action, it mirrors the movie--it’s nothing exciting, nothing that hasn’t been done before. It’s just strictly middle-of-the-road grindhouse prison porn.

Grade: C