Movie review: Death Race

Gladiator meets Mad Max by way of Prison Break.

by John P. Meyer

In the final scene of writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race, a character (and I'm not saying which one) lights up a Cohiba with a welding torch.

Which - if it had come at the beginning of the film - would have been a perfect lead-in to the overkill about to be put on big screen display.

Roger Corman, whose 1975 cult opus Death Race 2000 served as source material for this movie, gets credit as a producer (along with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner of Cruise/Wagner Productions). There's actually a bit of controversy surrounding the writing credit, with a guy named Adam Stone claiming he pitched the concept to Anderson's team, who told him they'd pass on it, then ended up plagiarizing the story for their script. (Says Adam.)

If true, you can't blame Mr. Stone for trying to get in on the box office action, because it appears to me that there's likely to be quite a bit of it, judging by 1) the entertainment value of the movie itself, and 2) the reaction of the promotional screening audience with which I watched the movie. They loved it. (So did I.)

If you like your films fueled by character development, insightful dialog and socially-conscious humanism, then horseman, pass by. But if you're hankering for an adrenaline-laced shot of the old ultra-violence - liberally seasoned with saucy supporting performances - then by all means, fill 'er up.

Tough guy du jour Jason Statham plays a foundry worker (heavy metal - get it?) named Jensen Ames in a post-fiscal-collapse USA where skilled laborers have no guarantee of any specific wage, much less benefits or union representation. We're introduced briefly to Ames' wife, Suzy (Janaya Stephens) and his baby daughter before - how to put this? - they are prejudiciallly absented from the proceedings, while Ames is framed for - um - the prejudicial absenting.

Sentenced to a life term at Terminal Island maximum security prison (run - like all other contemporary slammers - by a private, for-profit corporation), Ames makes a quick and rather forceful impression on an Aryan gent named Pachenko (Max Ryan). Or should I say that Pachenko makes an impression on the metal surface of the lunch tray with which Ames takes the measure of his facial features - perhaps in preparation for a future arts and crafts project.

Other dangerous and certifiably deadly characters make their presence known, including a gentleperson known as Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson, trying his level best to play badass when it's mostly the prison gang trappings that allow him to convey that cachet).

Joe earned his moniker through the skillful deployment of a pair of .50 caliber chain guns mounted atop the hood of his Dodge Ram truck (and I do mean RAM), which probably has a hemi, although that option would prove far less valuable than the all-around armor-plating which encircles the far-from-stock vehicle. That's because it's intended to be driven by Joe in the Death Race.

Which, as you've probably by now figured out, is a competition sponsored by the administrators of the Terminal Island prison facility. The three-stage kill-or-be-killed contest attracts a pay-per-view audience in numbers so vast that the take amounts to billions of dollars per match. Can you say, "profit center"? The inmates are enticed into participating through the implementation of a policy which stipulates that anyone winning five Death Race competitions gets a full pardon and free passage off the Alcatraz-like island.

Ames' criminal framing shapes up to have been engineered by someone at Terminal Island, with the likeliest candidate being the cast-iron bitch of a warden named Hennessey (Joan Allen, allowing her cold and conniving side come out and cavort). In black designer suit and pumps, this statuesque Nazi-fied blond wields authority with an iron-fisted (though immaculately manicured) right hand. There's something undeniably sexy about a powerful woman this consumed by single-minded avaristic intent, and pray to God you never get a taste of it. (Except vicariously, as here, where it's marvelous to behold.)

Why would Hennessey want Ames? As it happens, he used to be a big-time race car driver, before - one presumes - NASCAR went the way of the fossil fuel it ran on, leaving stock car jockeys out on the now-empty streets.

But enough of this plot-description foolishness - what this entertainment's all about is the death racing action itself, and after about a half-hour's worth of setup we get right down to it. Restraint, decorum and political correctness fly right out the window, as a slew of teasingly-clad female inmates slink off the prison bus to serve as navigators beside their male inmate drivers. (Note the chauvinism.) From the Terminal Island corporate standpoint, having the decorative babes riding shotgun makes for better pay-per-view ratings; in terms of we filmgoers, there's the chance to divide our attention between the buxom, bare-midriffed bod of movie newcomer Natalie Martinez (as Case) and the spectacularly executed crashes and explosions which mark the demise of one sneeringly-malicious convict contestant after another.

Serving as chief of the pit crew for Team Ames is veteran mechanic Coach (Ian McShane, who serves up the film's best bon mots extra dry). Along with whiz kid Lists (Frederick Koehler) and grease monkey Gunner (Jacob Vargas), these chaps are charged with protecting Warden Hennessey's secret, which is that it's Ames behind the wheel of the nitrous-breathing, lead-slinging, armor-plated Mustang and not actually the chap known as Frankenstein, who began wearing an ominous-looking welder's mask to cover up his deformities after about his third major crash. Frank, you see, died after crossing the finish line in a mass of fiery wreckage during his last race, but Hennessey wants to keep his legend (and her prime-time ratings) alive. Enter Ames. Behind the mask.

After the first two of the three scheduled event stages, it becomes clear that Hennessey has stacked the death-racing deck in her corporation's favor, going so far as to insert new wild cards at her whim - one in the form of a behemoth gunship bus dubbed The Dreadnought. It's up to Ames to figure out how to change the rules and even up the odds.

One of the things that makes this movie work is its unwillingness to flinch. Thus, when a character exits the twisted hulk of his demolished car and shakes his fist at the godlike eye of the camera, proclaiming "you can burn me, you can shoot me but you can't kill me" - and proceeds to have his head taken off by the open door of a passing truck - it's actually something to cheer about.

Because those are the rules of this cinematic game.

The other thing that makes this blackly-comedic motorhead melodrama worth watching is the line uttered by Joan Allen's puritanical warden when she discovers she's been outmaneuvered. And if you think I'm going to quote it here, think again: I wouldn't dream of spoiling its slap-in-the-face impact.