La Course à la mort de l'an 2000

The B-film industry was once a thriving staple of Hollywood, with directors of all walks and ideals being able to make a film as long as they could raise the cash. Roger Corman, a producer and director among many other things, is one embodiment of the independent spirit. Producing over three hundred films in his career, his name is virtually synonymous with B-level schlock, and it is his productions that have given many of today's major stars their start. In fact, you will find three very familiar faces gracing Death Race 2000. Death Race 2000 is one of his more extravagant productions, but do not let that fool you. Even in 1975, the three hundred thousand dollars he spent on Death Race 2000 would have equaled lunch money on The Godfather Part II, released the previous year on a comparatively lavish budget of thirteen million dollars. While I like both films equally, Death Race 2000 impresses me more simply because it manages to entertain me from start to finish without spending enough money to fund an emergency ward for a month.

Death Race 2000's plot is simple enough. Five drivers in customised cars drive across a repressive American dictatorship, starting on the East Coast before making their way to New Los Angeles. Along the way, they may run over any pedestrians for certain scores. Rather than simply being the first to cross the finish line, the winner is he who can accumulate more points than the others. It is this critical difference compared to other racing films from which much of the comedy is derived. Those who have seen the film before will remember Euthanasia Day with a lot of fondness, and the utter incompetence of the resistance movement is hilarious in itself. But the real comedy derives from the individual drivers and their personalities. By far the most normal driver in the competition is Calamity Jane, a woman with a cowgirl fetish and metallic bullhorns on the front of her car. Coming next is Nero The Hero, who will look very familiar to viewers of The Karate Kid. His whole shtick revolves around being a Roman Gladiator, but the film does not really give him enough time to develop it.

Things get really interesting with racer number three, Matilda The Hun. Sporting Nazi symbolism and screaming "Blitzkrieg" whenever she scores a pedestrian, she is the least subtle indication that the makers had their tongues firmly in their cheeks during the creation of the film. Next are the two big rivals in the competition. Sylvester Stallone plays "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo like a cranky adolescent who has snorted too much cocaine. There is literally nothing on the road he will not kill, and Stallone's trademark slurred speech suits the character to a T. But the real star of the story is Frankenstein, the other previous race winner and a friend of the President. David Carradine plays Frankenstein like a C-grade Darth Vader, delivering much of the comedy. His diversion on Euthanasia Day and the moment where he kicks Stallone's butt are worth watching the film for by themselves. Learning about why he wants to win the race, and what he will do in order to accomplish it, are hilarious in and of themselves. You can sort of see why Carradine and Stallone went on to become headlining stars whilst Kove enjoyed a brief career as the lead villain.

Death Race 2000 is as dated as hell, let's not kid ourselves. The matte painting of the starting race track is more obvious than an undone bluescreen effect. The blood is so fake that it looks pink at times. The editing makes it very confusing to see how one is getting run over, or who is punching whom during the aforementioned Carradine/Stallone altercation. On the other hand, its story of a dictatorship America that uses sport as an opiate for the masses, its portrayal of the media, and its depiction of blind obedience are timeless. They are even more relevant thirty years on than when the film first premiered. I like to think of the incompetent resistance movement as an indictment of the fact that we would have a better government if we had a credible or even opposing opposition. Seventy-nine minutes is too short a time to go into these political subplots at all, but that Death Race 2000 touches on them at all when far more serious and lengthy films made years later cannot even consider them is a credit to Corman and his company. Death Race 2000 is one of those films that should be preserved in a time capsule for the edification of future generations.

I gave Death Race 2000 a seven out of ten. Were I making it today, there are a few things I would do differently. The television segments would have been filmed using video or line removal rather than a camera at a television screen, for instance. Balancing this out, however, is the fact that so many of the shots are so effectively composed that it is no wonder Tak Fujimoto went on to become a multi-award-winning Hollywood cinematographer. In short, if you have not seen Death Race 2000 yet, then grab the new Roger Corman Classics DVD. It will be the best B-film, in fact one of the best films period, you will see all year.

'Mad Max' meets the 'Running Man' and they both drive over miss Daisy. 'Death Race 2000' is a disconcerting smithereen job, but also fun. It is unprobable to say the least: 'Frankenstein' as the embodiment of national virtue? Nice thought over a dose of mescaline maybe. With unbelievable music too. Everything seems 2 B possible: ethical correct splatter comedies? You've got it. The acting in this supposed SF (caricatures of the immoral society of the future) is absolutely horrible (apart from Carradine and Griffeth). Add some black humor and non-existing emotions and you have Death Race 2000: the obscure cult flick in which Sly gets slapped around some as driver Machine-Gun Joe Viterbo. And retrospectively one of his best roles, besides 'First Blood' and 'Rocky'.

Luckily there was room in the rating for some graphical splatter and nudity, which is why this has become a cult movie. And fat chance the uncut version will be banned where I live. It is more than questionable if the story is really about the fear of America becoming that chauvinistic and drenched in bloodlust. I get the impression that most of it is just a glorification of violence. But in a more thoroughly humorous way than e.g. Wild Bunch (1969) et al. Imagine the American president has a summer house in Peking, or driver Mathilda the Hun has a nazi-navigator Herman the German...

DR2k was appropriately filmed by the great cinematographer Tak Fujimoto (Badlands, Silence of the lambs, Sixth Sense, and last but not least Ferris Bueller's day off). Good for Paul Bartel that he made Death Race 2000 before George Miller made Mad Max (1978), because it would have been a completely obsolete cartoon otherwise: something like Evil Knievel vs Dick Dastardly. Nevertheless DR2k is quite enjoyable. This movie may be inspired by 'the Cars that ate Paris' (Weir, 1974) and seemed to have inspired 'Carmageddon' (VG) and Mad Max of course. Guys, it's been real. Jesus Chrysler, I'd almost rate this 6/10.

Death Race parodies so many things it's hard to know where to begin. America-centrism (the government blame the French for everything), professional sports, pro wrestling (the drivers are badly acted "theme" types), Big Brother, and just about everything else you could name. At the same time it panders to the blood lust of the audience with cartoon violence. Sylvester Stallone is hilarious as a driver with the mannerisms of a 30's gangster, practicing on his accent for the Rocky movies. A must -see.

Just exactly when bad taste ceases to be funny and becomes plainly cruel is a personal thing. However I have tried this film on a few friends and they did not enjoy it. That said I had rented the old VHS from the art-house vid shop 3 times before purchasing a cheap DVD copy when it popped up.

Personally I thought some of this was laugh out loud funny and other parts frankly embarrassing to watch.

I highly recommend Deathrace 2000 but take no responsibility should you decide to watch it! Tim

David Carradine stars in this classic cult creation. Deathrace 2000 is the 20th anniversary of the murderous trans-continental road race, or, in the words of the US president "what you all want".

You could lose this film in the repertoire of John Carpenter. If you're a Carpenter fan, you really need to see this. Much is made of Corman's production of this film, but this is really not a Corman film in any sense - except for its very obviously low budget. Paul Bartel (of Eating Raoul fame) deserves the directorial credit here, and he really did well given the mediocrity of the material he had to work with.

Ostensibly, the film is about a race involving five participants - Frankenstein (Carradine), Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Stallone), Calamity Jane (Woronov), Mathilda the Hunn, and Nero the Hero - all of comic book stature. They are joined by navigators who double as concubines, which, I suppose, illustrates the trust and intimacy a driver must have with any partner involved in a high speed transcontinental race where the goal is to kill as many pedestrians as possible along the way. About a quarter of the way through the film, it becomes clear that the real story is about the connection between the US government, religion, mass-produced violence and a resistance movement, all focused on either promoting or ending the race once and for all. As despicable as the empowered elite may be in this film, the critique of the media is even more scathing.

Carradine is race hero Frankenstein. Sly Stallone plays his arch-rival Machine Gun Joe Viterbo, and an ensemble cast of fellow racers, media mavens, politicos, and willing and unwilling victims of "the great race" lend strong support. The acting is predictably campy and sometimes just a little too B grade. But the occasional pacing disaster just enhances the humor-value of the film. Stallone is particularly amusing, and gets great support from his sidekick. Carradine is typically bizarre, and even parodies himself with a few poorly choreographed kung fu techniques during his absurd fight scene with Stallone. As short as he is, Stallone is still a much larger and more fit man than Carradine, but gets handily whooped. The cinematographer makes no effort to hide the absurdity of this scene.

The script for this film is a series of well-delivered clichés strung together with cleverly choreographed racing action sequences. As such, it parodies tough-guy talk in films and in real life. The photography is excellent, and on par with John Carpenter's straightforward visual subtlety.

This film appears, at first blush, as a comedic celebration of violence. But it's really a very campy comment on the use of violence in sport and entertainment, as a way to distract and desensitize the public from serious issues such as economic stress, collectivist totalitarianism, the enshrinement of mediocrity, and "minority privilege" (a euphemism for rule by an entrenched powerful elite). The film is dated and does not need to be seen ten times to get it (though I just completed about my 12th viewing).

The political messages are worth hearing, the humor is worth paying attention to, and, if it's your first time, you will likely find this movie quite entertaining.