Death Race (2008)

Ex-con Jensen Ames is forced by the warden of a notorious prison to compete in our post-industrial world's most popular sport: a car race in which inmates must brutalize and kill one another on the road to victory.

Director:

Paul W.S. Anderson

Writers:

Paul W.S. Anderson (screenplay), Paul W.S. Anderson (screen story),

Stars:

Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Ian McShane

1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jason Statham	...	Jensen Ames
Joan Allen	...	Hennessey
Ian McShane	...	Coach
Tyrese Gibson	...	Machine Gun Joe
Natalie Martinez	...	Case
Max Ryan	...	Pachenko
Jason Clarke	...	Ulrich
Fred Koehler	...	Lists
Jacob Vargas	...	Gunner
Justin Mader	...	Travis Colt
Robert LaSardo	...	Grimm
Robin Shou	...	14K
Benz Antoine	...	Joe's Navigator
Danny Blanco Hall	...	Joe's Navigator
Christian Paul	...	Joe's Navigator

Storyline

In 2012, amid economic chaos and high unemployment, Americans watch by the millions as criminals with life sentences race armored cars on Terminal Island. Two-thirds of the combatants die but the winner may earn his freedom. On the day he loses his job, steelworker Jensen Ames is arrested for his wife's murder. Sent to Terminal Island, he's offered an out by the steely and manipulative Warden Hennessey - race as the popular mask-wearing (but now dead) champion, Frankenstein, or rot in prison. Jensen makes the bargain. As the three-stage race approaches, he realizes that the whole thing may be a set up - can an anonymous man behind a mask get revenge and win his release?

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Plot Keywords:

car | warden | armored car | murder | tattoo | 

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Taglines:

Get ready for a killer race.

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Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA Germany UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 August 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Death Race 3000

Filming Locations:

Cité du Cinéma, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$45,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£683,038 (UK) (26 September 2008)

Gross:

£1,920,818 (UK) (10 October 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, Relativity Media, Cruise/Wagner Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min 111 min (unrated)

Sound Mix:

SDDS DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

4 tons of blank ammunition was used.

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Goofs

The front firing weapons fitted to Pachenko's car are WW-II vintage German MG-34 7.92mm machine guns and Russian PPSh-41 7.62mm submachine guns; the former have Gurttrommel 34 drum magazines each containing a 50 round belt, while the latter can take either a 71 round drum magazine, or a 36 round curved stack magazine. That makes them unsuitable for prolonged firing, as they lack sufficient ammunition and their location also makes them impossible to reload during a race. Plus, they wouldn't even make a dent on the "tombstone". Also, the flexible navigator operated machine gun on Carson's car is manually charged and fired, so the activation/kill switch mechanism for it would have to block either the charger or the trigger, but no such thing is visible.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Case: [while being shot at during Death Race] Damn it!

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Crazy Credits

After the credits, the line "Okay cocksucker. Fuck with me, and we'll see who shits on the sidewalk" is heard again.

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Connections

Referenced in Bad Movie Beatdown: Transmorphers (2009)

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Soundtracks

"5th Set"
Written by Mark Maher, Janet English, Damian Whitty
Performed by Spiderbait
Courtesy of Universal Music Australia PTY LTD.
Under License from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

Fun, Fun, FUN!

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!