Movie Review: Death Race

Genre: Action

Death race. The trailer seemed to show a promising movie, but you can't judge a book by its cover.

I think that the race is over, Death Race lost big time.

The movie is set in a somewhat futuristic setting, although not too far into the future. Once a NASCAR champion, Jensen Ames, (Jason Statham), hits rock bottom after the steel mill he was working at had closed down. He had a family to support, his wife Suzy (Janaya Stephens) and their baby girl rely on Jensen to survive. Jensen's day of misery did not end at losing his job. Shortly after Jensen checked on their baby girl Suzy is brutally murdered, and he is framed for her murder. Jenson is sent to Terminal Island, the worst and toughest for-profit prison in the country run by Hennessey (Joan Allen)

Prisons have become different in the future, they are now privately owned, for-profit organizations. There is no such thing as rehab in prison. Most inmates would spend time building their cars in order to compete in Death Race, a pay-per-view sport created by Hennessy.

The 3 stage race is simply a kill-or-be-killed sport, where inmates compete with one another, and the first to get 5 wins would be the first to get out of Terminal Island.

Each inmate gets to drive a monster car which they built loaded with guns, missiles, flamethrowers, napalm, and all other types of weapons for dealing death to other competitors.

Hennessey convinces Jensen to secretly take the place of the late 4-time superstar winner, Frankenstein, and wear his metallic mask in the race. If Jensen wins just one race, he can go home to his baby daughter. To get to the finish line, Jensen must kill his competition before they kill him.

There were some scenes in the movie wherein I caught myself laughing, it was surprising to find some humor in such an action-packed movie. Most of the laughs came from the over-the-top violence which a movie like this would provide. Yet, there were some cool one-liners that kept me beyond the crazy-ass violence.

As disappointing as the movie may seem, I think one of the few saving graces it had was the quality and quantity of the psycho violence each inmate dealt to one another. The brutal weapon-charged car on car violence was simply insane.

Another good thing about the movie is the sound quality and design. The quality of the sound pulls viewers into the movie as much as the visuals did. It reminded me of the pod race in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The sound was amazing.

As for the bad part, there are too much to mention. The plot was more than stupid (I think they had to force the plot) the dialogue was not any better, and the ending is worse than any movie I had ever seen.

If you'd like to be positive about Death Race, think of it as a REALLY BAD comedy movie. Or a really bad horror flick, if the over-the-top violence would scare some viewers.

In reality, Death Race is simply an ambitious action flick gone wrong. The few laughs and the psycho violence might have enticed the audience, but the story line will surely make viewers disappointed.

I give it 2 stars out of 5.