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'Death Race'

Rating:

BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

August 22, 2008

Parents, here's the truth. This weekend, your 14-year-old boy may claim to be seeing a Saturday matinee of " The Rocker," rated a mild PG-13, but he is assuredly planning to sneak into "Death Race," rated R. And who could blame him? Filled with weaponized vehicles, pyrotechnics, exploding skulls and some mesmerizingly enormous female breasts - but no sex or love-stuff - "Death Race" seems almost scientifically designed to trigger every boy's prepubescent pleasure-centers.

Yours, too, if we're being honest. "Death Race" may be a loud, lowbrow piece of pulp, but it's also crackling entertainment - the very definition of a cheap thrill.

The film bears little resemblance to Roger Corman's 1975 schlock classic, "Death Race 2000," in which drivers clipped pedestrians for points. Corman serves as executive producer here; this time, the gimmick is convicts who race each other to win their freedom. Onetime pro driver Jensen Ames (Jason Statham), framed for his wife's murder, conveniently lands in Terminal Island prison, where the ice-queen warden ( Joan Allen, cursing a hilarious blue streak) just happens to need a skilled racer to keep her reality show high in the ratings.

What the movie lacks in character development (e.g., everything) it makes up for with terrifically preposterous car chases and impressively brutal bouts of jailhouse mano-a-mano. Statham, the bullet-headed Brit star of the "Transporter" films, is a fine physical actor who's been recently restrained ("The Bank Job," "Revolver"), and it's great to see him back in action.

Writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson and his savvy editor, Niven Howie (both were behind "Resident Evil: Extinction"), keep the energy level cranking, even while they essentially play for laughs. The supporting characters, including an unfazed racing coach ( Ian McShane), the vengeful driver Machine Gun Joe ( Tyrese Gibson) and gorgeous navigator Case (Natalie Martinez), are so cartoonish they eventually become endearing. In the end, "Death Race" is objectionable fun for all ages.

(R)

PLOT Convicts race to the death in the hopes of winning their freedom.

CAST Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Joan Allen

LENGTH 1:29

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE Loud, lowbrow entertainment, and a crackling good time.