The other night my beloved wifey and I watched the last full show of the film Death Race (Starring Jason Statham as Jensen Ames) because Wall-E isn’t showing anymore. And while on my way to meet up with her at the mall, I was thinking of the title which by itself is a no brainer. As it implies, I presume that it’s just all about death and race. No more. No less. But wait, there’s more.
The moment the film started rolling, it immediately captured my attention with some of its projected text on the silver screen and with some questions running on my mind along with it.
2012 in America. Will we be there by this time?
Unemployment. Will we be included?
Death. Entertainment?
Race. Will we be watching another live F1 soon? And when?
My wife, as I expected, started giving her naughty remarks (I always know that it is meant to annoy me) while I was starting to sink in to the story. But instead of hushing her, I myself made my own mumbled remarks in agreement. And as if those keywords aren’t enough to keep us related to the opening part of the film with its resemblance to our pending future, the opening scene also shows the main character getting laid off from his job in the metal factory. There’s chaos in the line of workers waiting for their turn to get their last pay. At this point, I was beginning to feel uneasy and I was somewhat praying to get over with the factory scene and show the death race itself.
A few frames more, the factory setting ended, thankfully. I did not mind when the succeeding scenes became tragic with Jensen drugged by someone in a ski mask and eventually becoming unconscious just to wake up with police and their hand guns sticking inches away from his face while trying to make sense what he’s doing with a knife in his hand and his dead wife beside him. Needless to say, that landed him in prison.
His role in Terminal Island became apparent when he was offered to participate in the famous Death Race since his record shows that he was a famous car racer years before. His acceptance of the part will be his way out of the prison facility with the condition that he will win the race. (Sadly, I didn’t catch in the film the reason why he needed the said career and instead endured working inside the hot metal factory).
So just like any sane man offered to race for freedom, Jensen accepted. And this is where I started to enjoy the film. The main death race had several inmates as drivers and with their own armored, gun-mounted, and extra modified cars. Among them of course is Jensen who had to wear a mask in order to pretend as Frankenstein who was actually the famous death racer who perished in the opening scene but without the fans’ knowledge. The race is viewed online by fans numbering in millions with each paying at least $99 per view while the death racers outrun and “outgun” each other.
While I consider this as a B-movie, I actually applaud whoever was behind it. I’m now beginning to imagine that the people who conceptualized this movie are a team composed of Dana White’s men, ex-FIA officials, troubled American school kids, Twisted Metal (PS1 game) programmers and last but not the least – Filipino drivers.
Why? Because I find this movie a mixture of UFC fighters who are driving F1 cars with trigger-happy American school kids handling the Gatling gun’s remote button. Furthermore, the Filipinos here are divided into two sub- teams. First are those drivers who love to mount anything on their jeepneys from horse figures, shiny CDs, LEDs, more LEDS, horns, and unlimited antennas just to name a few–they are the designers of the Death Race cars. The other Filipinos are those who designed the weapon activation systems–-which I wish I’m one of them as sometime, just sometimes (wink wink), I wish I had those buttons inside our Mary.
Surprising as it may seem, I recommend this movie to let out some steam without doing any harm to the stubborn driver in front of you while stuck in traffic. Road rage alert. Watch out for bald male driver fumbling with the cigarette lighter
Marcus Can Blog 