Retro Film Review: Death Race (2008)

There are few movies that were made at the moment as convenient as in the case of Death Race, futuristic action film directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Only few weeks after its premiere, thanks to some catastrophic events at Wall Street, its premise became unusually and disturbingly relevant to the American and global audience. The film's prologue describes the world's greatest superpower under the impact of an unprecedented economic crisis, resulting in unemployment, poverty, and universal despair. The state is forced to resort to unconventional methods of combating crime due to empty treasuries and exhausted lines of credit.

Among the victims of the crisis is Jensen Ames (played by Jason Statham), a former professional NASCAR driver forced to support his family by working in a steel mill. When the steel mill closes, that's not the worst thing that happens to him - someone kills his wife and frames him for the crime. Ames is sentenced to life imprisonment, and he will serve his sentence in a private corporation-run prison. Its ruthless director, Hennessey (played by Joan Allen) derives her main income from "Death Race" - a driving competition between inmates where it is allowed to kill rivals, and which is streamed for money to enthusiastic viewers on the Internet. The most popular competitor, Frankenstein, has been killed in the last race, and Ames is offered the chance to take on his identity and try to win the race against brutish Machinegun Joe (played by Tyrese Gibson). Ames reluctantly agrees because he is promised freedom if he wins. However, when they give him the former Frankenstein's navigator, Case (played by Natalie Martinez), who was with him during the last race, Ames begins to suspect that Hennessey may not fulfil her part of the bargain.

It can be assumed that screenwriter and director Anderson, who has been trying to make this film for six years, was most attracted to the idea of car race using vehicles equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers. This idea, like many others in Hollywood, looks great on paper, but not so well when executed by Anderson. Instead of spectacular thrilling races, viewers get quite banal, poorly directed scenes with an outcome that is quite predictable once it becomes clear that Anderson's script does not deviate from any Hollywood cliché about good and bad guys, or the obligatory sentimental happy ending and some of the bad guys not being so bad after all.

Death Race, which should have been a thrilling movie in its own right, has the additional problem of being yet another Hollywood remake. In 1975 legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman adapted "The Racer", Ib Melchior’s morbid science fiction story about a futuristic race to run over pedestrians with a car. The result was Death Race 2000, a Paul Bartel film that now enjoys cult status as one of the few movies where Sylvester Stallone played the villain, but also as an unusually effective combination of dystopian vision of the future, satire on the modern world, and black humour.

As is depressingly common in modern Hollywood, the comparison between the original and the remake will give a clear advantage to the older film, and the newer one will look even worse. Anderson's script does not use any of the satirical potential of the original; the film has almost no humour, and the one-dimensional characters are played by glum and uninspired actors, including some notable names such as Ian McShane as Ames' prison mentor. In fact, the most memorable character is that of Joan Allen, although she has the fewest emotions - a renowned actress hardly had to try to make him a parody of a cold, ruthless bitch.

Death Race looks like a repeat of same sad story like that of Rollerball, another 1970s science fiction being remade into complete disappointment. Anderson, unlike McTiernan, has no excuse for not being able to capture the dark, pessimistic atmosphere of the 1970s in the post-Clinton era. Bartel's original, where the main villain was modelled after President Nixon, was made at a time when the US was still recovering from the defeat in Vietnam, Watergate, and the crisis caused by the oil shock. Anderson's remake was made in circumstances resembling Nixon’s era. Unfortunately, being made at the right time does not mean anything if the wrong person makes the movie.

Death Race, like the original, received mixed critics but wasn’t as popular nor it could have aspired for cult status. It nevertheless launched film series, made of three direct-to-DVD sequels: Death Race 2 in 2010, Death Race 3: Inferno in 2013 and Death Race: Beyond the Anarchy in 2018.

RATING: 2/10 (-)

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