DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO: Anyone Can Be Frankenstein

Death Race 3 (2013) – Directed by Roel Reine – Starring Luke Goss, Danny Trejo, Ving Rhames, Dougray Scott, Tanit Phoenix, Robin Shou, and Fred Koehler.

DEATH RACE just might be the best B+ movie franchise going right now.

DEATH RACE 3 is a sequel to DEATH RACE 2 and a prequel to DEATH RACE and it is, once again, a surprisingly good movie. I should probably stop saying that but while there’s the usual sequel degradation here (DR3 isn’t as good as DR2, which isn’t as good as DR1), the slippage is never as deep as I fear it will be, and I always end up liking these movies quite a bit.

There’s a bit of a blip here at the beginning that doesn’t work well with the end of DR2. We saw Carl “Luke” Lucas (Luke Goss) “die” near the end of that film and the birth of Frankenstein. There was a clear implication that Lists (Fred Koehler) and Katrina (Tanit Phoenix) highly suspected that Frankenstein was Lucas, but at the start of DR3, Frankenstein is being a total dick and Lists, Katrina, and Goldberg (Danny Trejo) now apparently think it’s not Luke in the suit.

Ving Rhames makes an appearance to sell Death Race to Dougray Scott, who takes Frankenstein and 14K (Robin Shou) to Africa to internationalize Death Race. It’s a great idea, both internally and externally. There’s really no reason they can’t make 3 or 6 or 20 more Death Race movies using this model, rotating a never-ending series of cars, racers, and Frankensteins. It’s very admirable that Universal and its partners have stepped up to make a quality film. There’s no actor here that’s going to break the budget, but Luke Goss is perfectly fine as a poor man’s Jason Statham, and the inclusion of actors like Trejo, Rhames, and Scott show the producers know how to balance star quality and acting talent. Toss in the returning Koehler and Phoenix, and DR3 just feels like a quality movie more than a simple franchise cash and grab.

I can’t stress enough how much that matters – by the time you hit a third movie, you’re not likely to market the film to new fans; it’s the fans that have been around that serves as your financial bread and butter and DR3 hits all the right notes for fans of the series. It’s a simple enough story, too, so it’s accessible to new fans, as well.

There’s a plot here but it’s a plot we know well by now. Evil corporate prison people hold a Death Race and take an interest in Frank. Cars blow up. People die. There are lots of explosions. There are some down moments – there’s too much time spent to Luke’s crew being mad at him for not revealing his secret to them, and there’s some really bad exchanges between Luke and Katrina over there romantic entanglements (it just reads wrong when hardened criminal Katrina breaks down in tears at the idea that her hardened criminal not-even-boyfriend slept with another woman), but all of these dings are salvaged in a really strong 10 minutes where DR3 pulls the “here’s what you didn’t see” move. What’s impressive is that in this compressed time we get a whole new way to look at the movie, which rewards you for paying attention, something a movie like DR3 doesn’t really need to do.

Director Roel Reine is back for his second DR film in a row and he does a better job this time around. Overall, the film isn’t as strong, but it’s the best ending of the entire series. Evil media guy Niles York (Scott) gets his comeuppance when Luke successfully pulls off a scam that has York end up burned and mistaken for Luke, thus becoming the new Frankenstein.

If you’ve liked the first two DEATH RACE films, there’s no reason you won’t like the latest installment. Here’s hoping it’s not the last we’ve seen of this franchise.

DEATH RACE 2: Is That Supposed to Be Deep?

Death Race 2 (2010) – Directed by Roel Reine – Starring Luke Goss, Lauren Cohan, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, Sean Bean, Deobia Oparei, Tanit Phoenix, Fred Koehler, and Robin Shou.

So this was a bit weird.

If you’ve read my reviews of DEATH RACE 2000 and DEATH RACE, you know I like car movies and the DEATH RACE films. I was vaguely aware there was a DEATH RACE 2 that was a prequel, but I never bothered to watch it. The idea of a sequel that’s actually a prequel isn’t my preferred mode of storytelling (why they can’t move the DEATH RACE story forward is beyond me – if anyone can wear the mask, it’s easy enough to just keep the ruse going) but with the release of DEATH RACE 3 (which is a sequel to the prequel but still a prequel to the original) and both 2 and 3 being available, now was the time to finally watch it.

I’m glad I did, as DEATH RACE 2 is a very satisfying better-than-B, less-than-A movie, but that’s not the weird part.

The weird part is that this film has, as one of its antagonists, an actress named Lauren Cohan. She plays September Jones, and fills the uber-bitch role that Joan Allen played in the first film. Jones is the television executive/personality that comes up with the idea of Death Race after the public grows bored with Death Match, a gladiatorial event that pitted prisoners against one another. Jones is tough, driven, lacking in morals, willing to do whatever it is she has to do to get ahead, and totally hot.

I couldn’t ever remember seeing Ms. Cohan in anything before and (barring some insignificant role) I kinda figured I’d remember it if I did.

After watching DR2, I didn’t want to watch anything else I might review until after writing this review, or watch anything that I really wanted to, you know, actually watch, so I figured it was time to give The Walking Dead another try. I was halfway through episode 1 of season 2, as I wasn’t a huge fan of season 1 and couldn’t even make it through the first full episode of season 2 without stopping it and doing something else. A show that didn’t move me and an episode that didn’t move me made for the perfect choice, I finished that episode off and the cliffhanger was good enough I let episode 2 play and wouldn’t you know who showed up before that episode was up?

Yup, Lauren Cohan.

She’s just as good as Southern farm girl there as she is as bitchy amoralist here, but I think I’d like Walking Dead a hundred times better if September Jones was walking around in that post-apocalyptic world, making TV shows about criminals fighting zombies. (Did I just make a movie? Darn straight, I did. You’re welcome, Hollywood.)

I shouldn’t like DEATH RACE 2, but I really like it quite a bit. It’s the sequel as prequel, there’s not nearly enough car racing, and the ending gives you the feeling they run out of money so they just decided to stop it wherever they were in the script, but it’s actually a really violently fun film.

The premise is that we get the story of the first Frankenstein, the guy that dies (or allegedly dies) at the beginning of DEATH RACE. Carl “Luke” Lucas (Luke “Luke” Goss) is a driver for Markus Kane (Sean Bean), a criminal kingpin who you know will die before the end of the film because people don’t hire Sean Bean if the role doesn’t call for the character getting offed. The set-up is one of those typically dumb movie set ups: Kane wants to rob a bank (because bank robberies always go off so well) and gives Luke, his right hand man, a crew of young screw-ups.

And a bright yellow Mustang.

That’s right – a criminal mastermind gives his right hand man a highly difficult mission with a highly sketchy crew and a highly improbably getaway car. They go rob the bank but the young crew shoots up the place and Luke ends up getting caught and sent to Terminal Island, where Kane puts a hit out on him, even though they’re best mates and even though Luke hasn’t talked to the Feds. Luke, for some reason, doesn’t think Kane would ever put a hit out on him because he believes in bromance over business, while Kane believes in business over bromance.

At Terminal Island, Luke falls in with Goldberg (Danny Trejo) and Rocco (Joe Vaz), as he’s been assigned to Goldberg’s work detail. (I pointed out in my review of DEATH RACE how that film borrowed quite a bit from Shawshank Redemption, and I like to think they named Danny Trejo’s character Goldberg and had him say he was the last Mexican Jew as another playful nod to Frank Darabont’s film.) They’re eventually joined by Lists (Fred Koehler), a nerdy inmate that befriends Luke.

The opening hour of the film is devoted to the bank robbery and Death Match and even though I was here for the cars more than a prison drama, it was actually pretty entertaining. DR2 moves fast and doesn’t go cheap on the action. The racing finally arrives when Jones convinces Weyland (Ving Rhames) that-

Wait. Weyland? Head of Weyland International? Is this an attempt to tie DEATH RACE into the Alien/Predator universe? Is Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender going to spend Prometheus 2 driving race cars in the LV-500?

Because that would be awesome.

There’s plenty of drivers and/or cars from the first movie here and 14K (Robin Shou) actually has more to do this time around than last time. The driving stuff is good, and DR2 adequately provides the right balance between action and story. The ending is a bit daft – after Luke gets burned real bad and everyone thinks he’s dead, Jones creates the Frankenstein persona for him. The final race starts, Luke uses his car to kill Jones, and-

That’s it.

We don’t actually see the third race, which is a curious decision. Most people, one would imagine, are watching a movie called DEATH RACE to see the Death Race, but the filmmakers decided that it was a better choice to give us an hour of prison drama and 30 minutes of racing, and that there was no better climax than watching the alive-for-five minutes Frankenstein crush a woman to death with his Mustang. Watching it, I was like, “Yeah! Now the race!” and the movie was like, “Yeah! Now roll the credits.”

Curious.

Despite all of the shortcomings and issues, DEATH RACE 2 undeniably works.

DEATH RACE: Anyone Can Wear the Mask, Not Just Anyone Can Drive the Car

Death Race (2008) – Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson – Starring Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane, Natalie Martinez, Max Ryan, Jason Clarke, Frederick Koehler, Jacob Vargas, Robin Shou, and David Carradine.

I love DEATH RACE, which is as lean, mean, and violent a car movie as you’re going to find.

I love car movies: Cannonball Run, Smokey and the Bandit, Speed Racer, The Fast and the Furious, Herbie the Love Bug … if a movie has awesome cars going fast, I’m going to … wait for it … take it for a ride. (Shalit!) Heck, I’ll even watch the Herbie movies without the Shaggy D.A. and with I’m a Mac (though I’ve never seen the one with Brisco County, Jr.). Of all the car movies, DEATH RACE offers the literal most bang for your buck. There’s a solid story here about a man named Jenson Ames (Jason Statham) who’s framed for the murder of his wife in order that he end up at the Terminal City prison to drive in the Death Race in the Frankenstein persona (who’s more Stig than the original Death Race 2000 Frank), and writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson has done a marvelous job balancing the action and the story.

It’s incredibly hard to make a movie like DEATH RACE of this kind of quality. Like so many films today, DEATH RACE is caught in the liminal space between A-List and B-List features. Paul W.S. Anderson mines this area of B+ movies as well as anyone. Just take a look at his directorial credits: Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Soldier, Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator, and two of the Resident Evil sequels. That’s a whole lot of quality, balancing mid-range budgets and mid-range casts. Most of the films grab either a genre star or borderline A-list star with solid acting skills and puts them into a simple to understand but difficult to get out of predicament.

(I think I need, “Simple to Understand, Difficult to Get Out Of” on a poster near my computer, because it’s the perfect mantra for telling solid, adrenaline-packed, stories.)

DEATH RACE hits all the marks I want out of a B+ movie:

1. A Compelling Lead – Jenson Ames is a perfect vehicle (Shalit!) for Jason Statham. Wrongly accused, infused but not burdened with a recently acquired moral center, and given free reign to tap into the violent tendencies he thought he had left behind him, Jenson allows Statham to do what he does best: growl, look at the camera over his shoulder, fight, make dry remarks, and take his shirt off. There are some actors with the range to walk over wide plains. That’s not Statham. His range is limited but it is finely honed and fiercely delivered, and if you join him on his turf, it’s inevitably you who will follow his lead and not the other way around.

2. Good Story – Largely covered above, DEATH RACE tells a small story in big explosions. There’s a prison. There’s a race. People die. Almost everyone’s a scumbag. Around that middle, Anderson adds the proper flourishes: the evil warden, Hennessey (Joan Allen), her vile sidekick, colorful secondary antagonists, kick-ass cars, and a bit of eye candy.

3. Colorful Characters – DEATH RACE adheres to the Skittles School of Casting, making sure we’ve got a diverse cast, and the casting folk do a good job giving us actors who are included because they fit the movie rather than some racial or ethnic checklist. Tyrese Gibson has been in both car movies (2 Fast 2 Furious) and sci-fi movies (Transformers), making him a perfect choice for the antagonist-turned-protagonist’s-sidekick role. Robert LaSardo has an extensive resume of playing bad guys, and he’s used here perfectly. There’s not much to his character, but he’s cast for his personality and he can take a few scenes and work them for all their worth.

4. Good Casting – The most inspired choice here is Joan Allen as Hennessey, which DEATH RACE a little bit of acting cred. Allen has been nominated for three Oscars, so seeing her show up to play a one-note bad guy is pretty awesome. She totally gives herself to the role, too. There’s no sense she’s just here because she needed the paycheck. Similarly, Ian McShane virtually floats through the movie, and the movie uses him in a such a way as to continually tell you, “Yup, we’ve got Ian McShane.” He’s the mentor, the smart guy … he’s basically Shawshank Redemption‘s Morgan Freeman and James Whitmore merged with Days of Thunder‘s Robert Duvall.

5. The Right Look – DEATH RACE has an awesome, post-industrial look. Everything is cold and hard and grey. Except for the explosions.

6. A Recognition of What It Is – I do not mean this in a dismissive way. I simply mean that what DEATH RACE wants to be is exactly what it delivers at a very high level, and so in terms of conception/execution, DEATH RACE is every bit the equal of Boogie Nights or Steel Magnolias.

7. Good Action – It’s here where DEATH RACE really delivers. The car racing scenes are very well shot, showing off both the cars and their drivers. The cars are characters, too, and Anderson does an excellent job keeping these cars unique from one another. One of the things that drives me nuts about a movie like Transformers is how all the robots end up looking the same, in part by their design but mostly because Michael Bay keeps his camera in way too close. The action happens so fast from so close that it’s hard to keep many of the robots apart in my head. That’s not the case here. You might not know that Jenson drives a Ford Mustang or that Machine Gun Joe (Gibson) drives a Dodge Ram or that 14K (Robin Shou) drives a Porsche Carrera, but you know they’re different cars, which is impressive given how all of the cars are rendered in grey and covered with all sorts of weapons.

DEATH RACE has been called both a remake of Death Race 2000 as well as a prequel, but really, DEATH RACE is more properly thought of as a remake of Shawshank Redemption with cars. It’s a wise decision. Shawshank is the best prison movie ever made (or, at the very least, the most recognizable prison movie for contemporary audiences), and Anderson does a good job taking it and remaking it as a post-apocalyptic action flick. I’ve mentioned the way Coach takes part of Morgan’s character (the wise old man) and Whitmore’s character (he can’t live outside the walls of the prison) to create an easy suit for McShane to stroll around in, but we’ve also got the wrongly-convicted protagonist, allusions to forced sodomy, a prison warden using the prisoners’ skills for their benefit, the warden’s primary henchman being a sadistic prison guard, the dramatic night-time escape, and the epilogue escape to the warmer climate of Mexico. Jenson and Joe are joined by Case (Natalie Martinez), Frankenstein’s navigator, and Jensen’s daughter, setting up a wonderfully odd little family unit, and giving a post-apocalyptic car movie as good a Happily Ever After as you’re likely to find.

The sequence that makes me love DEATH RACE comes during the second of three races, where Jenson and Joe team up to defeat a freaking Peterbilt 18 Wheeler overhauled to be one of the most impressively massive machines of death you’ll find. I love the way the film sets it up and uses it, and then quickly takes it away from us. It’s hinted at early in the film, then revealed in the second race, then eliminated in the second race, too, in an awesomely brutal collision. The Peterbilt could very well have been the basis for the third race, but by employing and eliminating it in Race #2, it elevates the personal drama for the third race.

There are imperfect moments in DEATH RACE, of course. Why is Jenson so worried about the Peterbilt truck in the second race when he knows the Warden needs him to get to the third stage to help the pay-per-view buys? (The races are PPV events put on to make money because prisons are run by corporations as for-profit enterprises.) Why does everyone keep looking over to his car and nodding and waving and whatnot, and why does Jenson nod and wave and whatnot back, when Coach has told us no one can see in the window?

Truthfully, I don’t care. From the opening sequence where David Carradine’s voice is used for the original Frankenstein and right through to the Mexican ending, DEATH RACE is flat-out enjoyable.