Death Race

Well what can one really say about Death Race. Ever so loosely based on the 1975 Roger Corman produced classic Death Race 2000, the film proudly displays Corman's name at the opening titles. Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is a former professional race car driver who has just been laid off in the ever increasingly bad US economy. He's framed for his wife's murder and sent to Terminal Prison, a modern day Alcatraz run by a greedy corporation and supervised by Hennessey (Joan Allen). The pride and joy of Terminal Prison is "Death Race" a grueling, kill or be killed race over three days. The winner of five races gets released from prison.

The star of Death Race "Frankenstein" has been killed and Hennessey needs a replacement driver. The racers are characters themselves, notable Tyrese Gibson as Machine Gun Joe a driver with a grudge against Frankenstein. Then there is the pit crew with notable Ian McShane as "Coach". And blah, blah, blah. Honestly do you even care? I saw the movie and I can't say I cared. What do you need to know? Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson you should probably know that. He's direct a fair amount of horrible films and a fair share of watchable if not in any way great films. Hot busy women? check. Fast cars and race sequences? check. Gratuitous violence and gore? check.

In the end the film was mindless but at times mindless can be good. I can barely recall any major plot developments. There were a fair amount of silly scenes that aren't worth repeating. But you get the races and the blood and it doesn't take itself that seriously. You can easily scarf down a bag full of popcorn and not feel like you've lost that much of your life. I do want to stress it is not a "good" action film. It just happened to make me chuckle a few times and I didn't walk out filled with a desire to set fire to something (not that any movie has ever done that).