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.

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: I Think This is a Manhood Ritual

Alien vs. Predator (2004; Extended Cut) – Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson – Starring Sanaa Lathan, Lance Henriksen, Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner, and Colin Salmon.

Earlier, I wrote over 2,000 words on ALIEN RESURRECTION, and could have written 1,000 more. Right now, I’m going to struggle to write 1,000 on ALIEN VS. PREDATOR.

Jumping way back into the franchise’s past to plop down in our contemporary period, AVP tells the story of an expedition into an underground pyramid. The expedition finds themselves caught between aliens and Predators, who run around the pyramid killing each other as part of a Predator manhood ritual. Predators kill humans. Aliens kill humans. Predators kill aliens. Aliens kill Predators. Predators win. Spaceship arrives. Aliens get final revenge. Hybrid baby is born.

AVP is certainly not a bad movie. In fact, almost stubbornly it’s an enjoyable enough popcorn movie if-

Right. There’s this. The first time I watched AVP I was at a friend’s house. I’d bought the movie just for the occasion, and being a fan of the ALIEN and PREDATOR franchises, I was ready for some popcorn goodness. (Although, we were actually eating brats and not popcorn, so I suppose technically I was ready for some bratwurst goodness.)

When I arrived, I was moderately pleased that a non-ALIEN, non-PREDATOR person had arrived because she was kinda hot. Unfortunately, she was also in the mood to shred everything about this film, so I spent much of the night happily checking out her legs and unhappily listening to her yap on excessively and loudly about the movie’s stupidity. I was both turned on and off, but by the time an alien and Predator faced off, I just wanted to watch the movie without her, or hang with her without the movie.

Anyway, AVP is an enjoyable enough popcorn movie if you’re into aliens and Predators. Or Sanaa Lathan. And since I’m into all three there’s plenty here to keep me interested, even if I’m never all that engaged.

As AVP opens, my initial thoughts were that this movie was rather tedious to watch. Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henrikson) of the Weyland Corporation (this is their pre-Yutani days) notices an odd heat signature beneath the Antarctic ice, so he assembles a team of experts from around the globe to go investigating with him. Most of the people he brings in are nameless men and women in large winter coats, but there are a few prominent members of the squad: guide Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), archaeologist Sebastian De Rosa (Raoul Bova), and … well, that’s it, really. Everyone else is basically, “Nervous Guy with Two Kids,” “Super Cool Assistant,” “Predator Fodder #3,” and “Alien Fodder #6.”

The expedition arrives at an abandoned whaling station that sits on top of the buried pyramid, where they discover a perfectly carved tunnel has been bored overnight. It can’t happen, yet there it is, so they do the only smart thing and go down into tunnel to investigate the pyramid. What hurts AVP through this point is that Alexa doesn’t want to be here, and I generally can’t stand protagonists who don’t want to be here. There’s also some forced helicopter and SUV-garnered camaraderie between Alexa and the Nervous Guy with Two Kids and then Alexa and Sebastian that doesn’t work.

Another negative is that AVP is the kind of film that never looks like anything but a movie. Everything looks like a set that was constructed last week. I don’t believe this whaling station exists or that the pyramid exists or that anyone was every sacrificed here. Even the Predators look phony, like they’re going to a cosplay convention instead of going to fight to the death against aliens. It’s a minor point and doesn’t ruin the film for me, but it is a constant visual reminder that this is all make believe.

When Weyland’s expedition hits the pyramid, there’s some puzzles to solve that seem ripped from an old video game. At least when we get to the pyramid things start happening, though I don’t know why they didn’t just start the movie en route to build some momentum.

Once the expedition unlocks a drawer with some weapons left for the Predators, the movie really picks up steam and, much to my surprise, becomes a rather enjoyable watch. Sebastian figures out that the pyramid is a manhood ritual, where young men from space come down to fight the “serpents” (what they call the aliens) to prove themselves.

As long as the aliens and Predators are fighting, I’m happy. There’s some good battles and some good visuals and a decent amount of tension. Good, not great. (Though there’s one slow-motion shot of a facehugger jumping at a Predator that’s pretty darn awesome.) I like how the Predator doesn’t kill Weyland at first because he sees the old man is sick, and I like how Weyland then stubbornly tries to kill the Predator anyway. I like how the film does what it can to personalize certain aliens and Predators by giving them noticeable injuries; it’s a small thing but it really helps to add a bit of attachment to these enemies.

Alexa and Sebastian eventually decide to ally themselves with the Predators, doing the old “an enemy of an enemy is my friend” bit, but they still have to prove themselves to the Predators because it’s not like the Predators and aliens are fighting over who gets assistance from the humans.

But really, it’s just fun to watch these two monster franchises collide. Would I have handled all of this differently? Absolutely. I don’t think we need humans in these stories, but the movie studios do, and the film minimizes their impact rather quickly. As I said, they’re just fodder for the aliens and Predators and that works enough for me. AVP isn’t a great movie, but it’s a decent amount of fun.

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ALIEN / PREDATOR Review Index

ALIEN: A Survivor, Unclouded by Conscience, Remorse, or Delusions of Morality
ALIENS: My Mommy Said There Were No Monsters. No Real Ones. But There Are.
ALIEN 3: A Bunch of Lifers Who Found God at the Ass-End of Space
ALIEN RESURRECTION: Must Be a Chick Thing
ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: I Think This is a Manhood Ritual
ALIEN VS. PRDATOR: REQUIEM: Small Town America Kills Two Franchises at Once