Writer & Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s remake DEATH RACE (2008) is one of the most fun films of 2008 since Sylvester Stallone’s RAMBO. Anderson has done some of the best guilty pleasure films in the past two decades with the first MORTAL KOMBAT, EVENT HORIZON, RESIDENT EVIL, and most recently ALIEN V. PREDATOR, and his new film is no exception.
In the future the prisons are run by corporations and for profit and as such Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen) created the reality television show “Death Race” which has prison inmates battling each other on a race track in supped up automobiles to kill each other and win their freedom should they win the race. New to this is Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) who takes behind the seat of the famed legend of Death Race Frankenstein, whose legend Hennessey refuses to let die. Ames was framed for murdering his wife and faces a life sentence in the prison with the Death Race his only way out, but when he realizes that the warden has something with his being put into prison he decides to take matters into his own hands and find an alternate way to win his freedom from both prison and the death race.
The film is simple and straight forward with lots of subtle sub-stories for all the other characters including Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane, and Natalie Martinez, to name a few, so Anderson was trying to add as much color to the film as he could. The true character of the film are the amazing car races (and crashes) and stunts throughout this non-stop action film. Like RAMBO the action is grand and fierce and never boring and Anderson has had a history of always delivering the goods and what the fans of his films really want.
I’ve never seen the original Roger Corman film DEATH RACE 2000 but I enjoyed this film from beginning to end more as a film-fan then as a filmmaker (since this is not high art) and I recommend this film to all action film-fans.
In the future the prisons are run by corporations and for profit and as such Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen) created the reality television show “Death Race” which has prison inmates battling each other on a race track in supped up automobiles to kill each other and win their freedom should they win the race. New to this is Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) who takes behind the seat of the famed legend of Death Race Frankenstein, whose legend Hennessey refuses to let die. Ames was framed for murdering his wife and faces a life sentence in the prison with the Death Race his only way out, but when he realizes that the warden has something with his being put into prison he decides to take matters into his own hands and find an alternate way to win his freedom from both prison and the death race.
The film is simple and straight forward with lots of subtle sub-stories for all the other characters including Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane, and Natalie Martinez, to name a few, so Anderson was trying to add as much color to the film as he could. The true character of the film are the amazing car races (and crashes) and stunts throughout this non-stop action film. Like RAMBO the action is grand and fierce and never boring and Anderson has had a history of always delivering the goods and what the fans of his films really want.
I’ve never seen the original Roger Corman film DEATH RACE 2000 but I enjoyed this film from beginning to end more as a film-fan then as a filmmaker (since this is not high art) and I recommend this film to all action film-fans.
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