A daft race fit solely for masochists

Death Race
Cast: Jason Stratham, Joan Allen
Director: Paul WS Anderson
Rating: *1/2

Death Race is typical of a video-game. The story is full of robotic characters and the action is dominated by the turn of wheels.

This kind of movie-making is infinitely dumb and devoid of creativity. Paul Anderson’s version is borrowed liberally from the 1975 Roger Corman movie, Death Race 2000, but lacks the former’s’ goofiness and originality.

The premise is simple. It’s 2012, the US is in the throes of a financial crisis and crime is on the rise. Terminal Island is where the most notorious criminals are held, lorded over by warden Henessey (Joan Allen) and gladiator sports are a favourite pastime there. So a Death Race it is, for inmates who either have to win five times in a row to get shipped out, or play the game and die.

Henessey’s favourite Frankenstein, a four-time winner is dead. In order to take the thrills to a new high, she frames Jensen Ames (Jason Stratham) in a murder plot so that she can enroll him as a body double for Frankenstein and take the TRPs up. But Ames and Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) decide to play the game differently.

This is the kind of a film that does not have a proper script. The whole scenario is predetermined in favour of the thrills. It’s all quite meaningless and uninteresting. The characters are entirely mechanical and the plot is predictably staged in keeping with the zoom-vroom antics.

The three race set-pieces are the show-stoppers as far as Anderson is concerned and he concentrates his efforts on delivering thrills with visuals of flashy firepower, using hyperactive camerawork and some deft editing. Paul Haslinger’s metal score adds to the grating tediousness! This film is full of sound and devoid of substance!