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Death Race gives the people what they want—blood, babes and booms!

I remember the original Death Race 2000, the Roger Corman flick about the future where people raced to the death.  It stared David Caradine and a very young Sly Stalone.  It was cheesy fun that fit the times.  But, since nothing in Hollywood is ever new, it seems to be time for an update of the story but still Executive Produced by Roger.  This time it is much more serious and a much better film—this Death Race.
 
We get an opening explanation that in the near future there is rampant inflation and few jobs.  Most people have turned to entertainment as their sole solace.  And much like Ancient Rome, we have begun to demand real blood in our sports.  Thus is born Death Race, where prisoners are allowed to participate in a ‘death to the finish’ race.  The winner of five races gets his freedom.
 
Now we get to our story.  Ames (Jason Staham) is a former racecar driver and current steelworker.  When the plant shuts down, he is almost in a riot.  Getting home to his lovely wife and child, Ames is attacked and his wife killed with his hand on the murder weapon.  As he passed out, he sees the real murderer make a shooting movement.
 
It is now six months later and Ames is now in the prison where the Death Race is held.  The warden (Joan Allen) wants Ames to take on the personification of the masked racer Frankenstein.  It seems that the real Frankenstein is still in the prison hospital, trying to recover from the last race.  At first he refuses, but he is dangled the key to the way out.  If he wins just one race, he will win his freedom and be able to be with his baby daughter.  He also sees a guy in the race doing the same shooting movement.  He, and we, put two and two together.
 
The rest of this Death Race is just that—the three day pay-per-view spectacle that is Death Race.  But to add into the cheesecake in this testosterone world, each racer is given a hot chick navigator from the women’s prison. 
 
Death Race is a spectacle on the line of Ben Hur, but with cars and not chariots and without the Christian overtones.  There are explosions upon explosions as drivers win offensive and defensive weapons by running over buttons on the ground ala a pinball machine.  Racing cars and blood spurting bodies are the sum total of this film, as the field goes down to a final confrontation. 
   
With his Transporter character it seems the Jason Staham owns August box office.  While he makes other kinds of movies, he is best known for over the top action flicks.  All he does here is grunt and grimace, with a few snorts thrown in for good measure.  I know that he can do more, like he did in The Bank Job.  It would be a bad thing for such a talented performer to get stuck in this genre, but one has to pay the bills.
 
Joan Allen as the warden is tough as nails and twice as black.  She is a personification of evil and greed, just the meaty role that she has never played before.  By chewing on each scene, she gives a seldom seen performance.  It was just great watch her growl at everyone and everything.
   
This Death Race is a heart pounding thrill ride disguised as a movie.  It delivers all the action one would expect and none of the logic.  If you pull one thread of logic from the whole cloth of this picture, you take this film apart in a mess on the floor.  But if you can check your brain at the door, this is a fun little diversion for the heat of August.

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