Being a direct prequel to any film, let alone one directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, is something of a thankless task. Simply put, when it comes to ending your film you are incredibly limited about where your story can actually go as it has already been laid out years in advance. This is just one of the hurdles that Death Race: Inferno has to navigate as it speeds towards its finishing line, especially when you tale into account that it’s lead has already been predetermined to die ten minutes into the first film.
So, not only has DTV sequel director Roel Reiné got that on his plate, he also has to somehow come up with more ferocious races on order to top his own work from Death Race 2. The result is… negligible, but I’m feeling rather generous today, so I figure I’ll try and concentrate more on the plus points that the movie contains rather than condemn a movie for some rather obvious flaws.
When we last spent time with with the hyperbolic carnage that is the most popular sport in the world, Death Race has undergone a few changes. Previous owner R.H. Weyland has found himself on the wrong end of a hostile takeover that’s seen the eponymous race shift ownership into the even more unscrupulous hands of billionaire Niles York who has big plans for the franchise, starting to a relocation to Africa. However, the success of Death Race lives or dies on one man, Frankenstein, a competitor who seems to have become the John Cena of automotive death sports and who has recently secured his fourth win. Of course Carl Lucas, the man behind the mask, has something of a complex past going on – severely burned at the end of the last film, he’s let his devoted race crew think he’s dead in order to protect them from any double dealings callous businessmen may concoct.
However, after handily having his extensive burns magically erased thanks to some plastic surgery, Carl is ready to secure that all important fifth win that should mark his freedom. However, if he was to win, that would mean Death Race loses its biggest draw and Niles will see his investment plummet into the toilet, so he has to walk a delicate tightrope between having Frankenstein not win, but also not killed. While we wonder if Vince McMahon ever had this trouble, Frankenstein and his still-clueless crew of Goldberg, Lists and love interest Katrina have to adapt to a set of new, more dangerous race tracks that not only include more deranged competitors, but also veers worryingly close to the territory of African warlords. However, more drama occurs when Carl’s gang finally discovers he’s alive (and looking suspiciously unburnt) and treat it like a massive betrayal, but despite Carl’s insistence that he has some special, mysterious deal in place, it does seem like Niles is holding more cards than a terrible Uno player…
So, despite my claims that I’m going to go a bit easy on Death Race: Inferno, I would be remiss in my duties if I did at least point out some of the many problems the film has. For one, it’s predictably stupid and it’s flailing attempts to try and synch up with the beginning of the first film sees it contort it’s plot so ludicrously with the last five minutes of the film, it’s virtually impossible to keep track. Needless to say, it’s somehow both utterly ridiculous and inadvertently hilarious as it frantically twists and turns like a demonically possessed acrobat to shove multiple square pegs into various round holes. Elsewhere, Luke Goss may have a similarly muscular bald head and all the raised temple veins that comes with following up Jason Statham, but he still betrays a lack of charisma that somehow improves when the featureless Frankenstein mask goes on and his back up – including a sleepwalking Danny Trejo and Tanit Phoenix’s impressively prominent cleavage – manage to project a similar lack of empathy.
However, while all these aspects should he quite damning, Death Race: Inferno manages to turn up the volume on the exploitation-o-meter, which results in a few aspects that make this dusty actioner quite a harmless watch. For a start, Dougray Scott seems to have dusted off his villain performance in Mission: Impossible 2 and brought it out for another outing as Niles York is just essentially who Sean Ambrose might have been if he’d actually managed to get that knife into Ethan Hunt’s eyeball. He milks every line reading like James McAvoy on coke, he verbally abuses his employees like a good looking Mr. Burns and his plans are frequently completely illogical, and yet he encapsulates the obvious trashiness of this film far better than Goss does.
Elsewhere, despite some overtly frenzied editing that’s trying to emulate Michael Bay’s style but often flies completely off the rails into incoherence-ville (the fight scenes are truly awful), you can tell that every inch of Reiné’s being is being plunged into making the races as deranged and crazed as the budget will allow. In fact, some of the car designs show more character than some of their drivers who mostly are yet another selection of cackling maniacs only made distinguishable from one another by scars, facial hair, or whatever tics they add to their performance. One vehicle is essentially a truck with a tank turret bolted onto the back of it while it’s barrel sticks through the cab, and the level of aging and detail involved gives it a definite Mad Max feel which is only enhanced by the fact that it often looks like the racers are driving through the squalid sets of District 9. Obviously, the explosions are sizable and the crashes aggressive and while each round does go on a bit long, you get the feeling that the filmmakers were having more of a legitimately great time piecing each one together in the editing room than they probably did while on location.
Adding to the booms and the bullets are an increased amount of babes that sees the concept that each driver (who are possibly murdering rapists) have to come equipped with a buxom navigator who come from prisons where regulation unifory apparently includes a bare midriff and a hefty push up bra. In fact, at one point, the film goes fully into Roger Corman territory and has a bevvy of psycho bitches rip each other to shreds in order to survive and earn their placements as navigators and while some may understandably declare this as sexist twaddle, it gives the film a trashy feel that it probably should have been shooting for all along.
So in closing, while Death Race: Inferno could hardly be described as a genuine action classic, I have to give the director and anyone involved with the filming of any of the races a massive tip of the cap in their efforts to match action sequences that boast a more extravagant budget. It sure ain’t smart, it certainly isn’t art, but when it comes to putting some boom within the vroom, skip the dialogue and you’ve got something that might warrant four stars if it only was an hour long.
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