Deathrace

It’s strange the movies you decide to check out once you have a service like Netflix. I guess not having to pay the $10 or more for a DVD has its advantage. Recently, I received the new Deathrace movie that came out in theaters last year sometime. It had Jason Statham, from the Transporter movies, in it, so I figured it had to be decent.

Before I’d even watched it, though, a guy at work, who’s more than twice my age, told me about the original film, Deathrace 2000, which had come out way back in 1975. It had starred Sylvester Stallone, and had been nothing more than a gorefest. Basically, the idea was for the racers to kill as many pedestrians as they could during a race.

However, Deathrace has a little more class–and much more validity. What if reality TV producers could do anything they wanted? What if every prison in America was run by corporate interests? Well, you’d get something like what this movie portrays, I’m sure. Think Super Mario Kart without all the cute–machine guns instead of turtle shells. That’s Deathrace.

In order to pay for their incarceration, the corporation that runs Terminal Island–one of the largest prisons in the country where only the worst of the worst are sent–has created a reality TV show involving some of their highest profile prisoners. It’s basically a race to the…death. If an inmate survives three races, he gets to go home–leave the prison behind. That is except…the evil warden doesn’t want ANYONE to leave…alive. That might hurt the ratings.

All in all, Deathrace is a fun watch. It has plenty of action, and the bad guy–or, should I say, gal?–is believable, as is the hero. I’ve killed a couple of hours before in worse ways–with worse movies. No Country for Old Men. Please, shoot ME with that air gun.