by Al Shield

Created on: March 10, 2009

Park your brain at the door with this one - From the first time you witness a driver being impaled by protruding spikes and then crushed by said retreating spikes, you'll realize that Death Race is zero brains and pure unfiltered brawn and it pulls no punches about what it is. Take the high speed thrills of Bullet, Gone In 60 Seconds and The Fast and The Furious series and boil them down to almost nothing, then leave the bones to bleach in the sun for a bit: What's left is Death Race.

The year is 2012 and unemployment is rife, crime is rife and prisons turn to corporate ownership to survive. In the middle of this mix of ugliness and desperation is Jensen Aimes (the ever brooding and even more buffed up than usual Jason Statham), former race driver and now unemployed foundry worker. Armed with just his rippling muscles, a dark background and memories of a better time, Jensen lives for his beautiful wife and young daughter.

However both are cruelly ripped from his now free from work life on the same day he loses his job when a masked intruder breaks in, murders his wife, knocks Jensen out with spray and frames the brooding one with his beloveds death. So it's off to the aptly named Terminal Island Prison Complex where Jensen faces a fun time of dodging Aryan brotherhood gang members and trying to stay alive.

Run by the very sadistic warden Hennessey, Terminal Island just happens to be the home of Death Race where lunatic inmates try to out race and out destroy each other in heavily customized and armored vehicles packed to the brim with enough weapons each to start a world war. And while the denizens of Terminal Island busy themselves with trying to run over each other, the blood hungry millions of masses from around the world tune in on pay per view paying a small fortune to see the last lunatic standing.

If an inmate wins five races, they win their freedom and this is where Captain Brooding British comes in. Up until now an inmate called Frankenstein (named for the fact that he's had so many injuries that he's now unrecognizable and must wear a mask) has proved insanely popular to the blood thirsty viewers and is just one win away from a life off the island. The trouble is, Frankenstein took such a battering in his last race that he died on the operating table. With the star of the show now pushing up daisies, the Warden offers Jensen an ultimatum: Either slip on the mask and pick up where Frankie left off or stay in solitary confinement and never see his daughter

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