Course à la mort

I always hate it when all those high class critics from the newspapers and journals bash a film for not being what THEY want it to be and not looking at it for what its SUPPOSED to be.

The title is "Death Race" after all. No-one ever expected it to win any golden trophies in the first place. So what if the acting was a bit bland and the plot was a little weak. That's not was the movie is supposed th be about.

It's not a Martin Scorsese film where you sit back and think "Oh, that is very thought-provoking and I feel that I've truly learned something inspirational today." No. This is a film where you sit back, look at it, and think "Holy ****!! Did you see that ********** explosion?!"

This is a film where you have fun in. Don't worry if you walk away with nothing meaningful to talk about at the end. Go ahead and laugh at its stupidity. I guarantee you you'll still have a much better time that watching something like Capote

Definitely better than the ridiculous "Righteous Kill", that we had the doubtful honor to view today also, at the same press screening, here in Bucharest, Romania.

"Death Race" is a honest to God action movie, without any bigger-than-life pretensions. The script follows correctly an old tested and tried recipe, everything is at its place, and although you can easily plot out the whole course since the beginning, somewhat even this sounds good - you simply have the guilty pleasure of savoring again a story that you know from dozens of other movies.

The influences from the racing video games are explicit, and well mastered - me, I fully felt as while playing "Death Rally". Even certain aerial shots are obvious quotes from the computer game imagery. The narrative is nervous and thrilling, the effects professional, the violence degree precisely balanced. Maybe the main virtue of the movie is the cinematography, with admirable chromatic and plastic values. All in all, what it promises, it delivers: a cheap show, well done.

By the time I entered to see this movie, I knew what to expect. Jason Statham. A movie called "Death Race". A poster with spiked cars and bazookas on them. Why the hell would I expect a "Deep Sophisticated Movie"?

So, I grabbed 2-3 beers, some chips and started the movie!

Hell I enjoyed it. And I was in Home.

Don't listen to the critics. I love Sophisticated movies, I mean my favourite Director is Guy Ritchie and he tries to make every time a movie with a complicated plot. This is not Batman: Dark Night. It's a classic American Culture - Game-Like movie. Do you want pure Explosions & Guns entertainment to do something with your time? This is what you're looking for and it's good for what it is.

Now here's an exploitation film that knows what a solid B-movie is supposed to be: an action-dense, amped-up, gore-soaked killfest. It's the cinematic equivalent of eating that entire box of Red Vines you bought at the snack bar, using them as candy straws to suck down your extra-large Coke.

As a fan of the original "Death Race 2000," I was pleased to see just enough of a shadow of the original movie inhabiting the skin of the new one. Roger Corman's name on the producing credits gave me hope at the start, and his seal of approval seemed to mean something, perhaps as counterweight to Paul W. S. Anderson's track record of shooting mediocre video game adaptations. Surprisingly, Anderson rises to the occasion, effortlessly elevating a cliché-rich but fast-moving script to the level of a satisfyingly adrenalin-fueled confection aimed like a bullet at the A.D.D.-addled brains of the short-attention-span generation.

Set in an "Escape From New York"-style dystopic prison-culture (that sounds suspiciously like current American society), slaughter happens, stuff blows up, and the weak are culled like bunnies caught in the headlights of gas-sucking American muscle cars. Fans of the "Twisted Metal" video game will love the newest wrinkle in the race, the addition of weaponry – a needed bloody bump for version 2.0. And what a bump it is, with each car's chugging machine guns indiscriminately spewing hot rounds at every foe, shredding Detroit steel like it was used Kleenex. It's unabashed gun fetishism at its gleeful best, and it makes you want to strap an M60 to the hood of your Prius in order to cut your commute in half.

Jason Statham does his standard tough-guy job as the scowling Frankenstein, Joan Allen plays a ball-busting warden (perhaps a bit in the mold of Louise Fletcher's Nurse Ratched), and Ian McShane of "Deadwood" has a solid cameo as the prison-wise mechanic, Coach. Even Machine Gun Joe gets a new incarnation in the form of Tyrese Gibson, who thankfully is nothing like Stallone's blustering Italian meatball.

I loved it, and can't wait to see it again in a theater with enough bass to pump up those impact crunches to the bone-jarring level they deserve.

Yeah!

I was able to attend the advanced screening here in Dallas and must say I enjoyed myself immensely. While anyone going into this film expecting anything more then a thin veil of a plot will be sorely disappointed, it will definitely entertain those who have the right expectations. That said, this is a no holds barred, testosterone fueled thrill ride. Think of the game Twisted Metal, then throw in convicts, a greedy warden looking only at the profit and you have Death Race. While the movie has plenty of explosions, machine guns, armored cars, gore and beautiful females, there was enough humor and sentiment thrown in to make it all seem worthwhile. Definitely an entertaining film, and one that any over-the-top action movie junkie will surely add to their collection.