Death Race (2008)

Death Race. I had ascertained many times that I love Jason Statham (a bad-ass bald dude with a cool accent that could hurt you with a mere frown) as an action figure. An unabashed love that even if he has involved in that Uwe Boll's stinker (which I had to admit, the ONLY Jason Statham's filmography that I haven't seen and I'm not boasting as well. Nineteen films of his, and Dungeon Siege is the ONLY one I haven't seen), I could very much forgive him and return to the theater for his newest film if it's involve death, carnage, bad-ass fights, gun powders, and the like. Even if the plot and script promises nothing, as long as the bad-ass bald dude that is Jason Statham is doing what he's doing best which is beat the crap of the other guy, we don't really mind. I don't.

Death Race's plot is as simple as you could imagine. In the abysmal future when economy slumped, unemployment rate hits record high, and crime rate is staggering, the crime institution are runs by profit oriented private company. One of such company, runs by a particularly evil Hennessey (Joan Allen), put a race involving full-armor and full-weapon cars, conspicuous female convicts as navigators with one simple rule, stay alive until the end of the race. To attract the inmates to stake their life for profits, they're promised freedom after they had won five races. A fan favorite, masked Frankenstein had won 4 races. However, he killed during his final race. The company covered the fact by saying that he was injured and thus unable to participate. During his absence, the rating drops and the company need someone as good and as bad to replace him. Enter Jensen Ames (Jason Statham), ex-convict who has tried to live an honest life after he met his wife and had a daughter. He was framed for his wife's murder by the company and soon found himself participating in a Death Race masquerading as the masked Frankenstein. But of course, not after he threatens Hennessey with an 'awesome' line, "You wanted a monster? Well, you've got one"

From Paul W.S. Anderson, you won't and shouldn't expect too much from this film. The characters were simply exists as means to advance the plot and nothing more. And here, when I'm talking about "plot", I was actually referring to exploitation action scenes where we, as an audience, giving in to our most primal and raw instinct without any or minimal interference from the part of our brain that cries for "logic!" In that note, the film delivers and serves its purpose as a high-octane hot-wheeled smoking asphalt action film.

It is enough that this film has a totally like-able tough guy we all rooting for and an identifiable face that we could associated with evil that we want to see down, obliterated, and shredded into the oblivion. I mean, you don't need character actors to shoulder this responsibility. However, I've got a particular liking for Ian McShane. Well, he was already an awesome dude in HBO's Deadwood anyway.

My rating: **1/2 / **** - Well, for an action films it serves its purpose. Don't go looking for a breath-taking actor-wise performances or a brilliant script that made you want to go back to that English literature class and you could enjoy this film. Rated R for violence, so leave your kids at home (I was amazed that there's actually a couple who take their kids to see this film. I was muttered, "It's rated R, stupid" as they passed my aisle)