Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you an action,
sci-fi, thriller film from 2008, titled Death Race. Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In the year 2012, the American economy collapses. Unemployment hits record high and crime rates
spiral out of control. The prison system reaches breaking point, so private corporations now run
all correctional facilities for profit. Terminal Island Penitentiary streams a
series of cage fights live on the internet, and prisoners fighting to the death become a rating
sensation. However, the audience soon becomes bored and demands more, and that's how the Death
Race is born, a show where inmates race each other to the death in specially modified cars
in order to win their freedom. In today's race, there are only two cars left. One is driven by
masked inmate Frankenstein and his navigator Case, and the other is Frank's oldest rival,
Machine Gun Joe. Both of them are nearing the finish line and ready to do anything to win,
but for some reason, the weapons in Frank's car aren't working. He improvises by releasing the
car's back shield, which hits Joe and earns Frank some momentary advantage, but Joe hasn't given
up yet and still has the offensive leverage. Case knows Joe will destroy them and wants out,
but Frank refuses to let Joe win, so Case ejects herself out of the car as Frank crosses the finish
line at the same time Joe shoots it, winning yet exploding in the process. Some days later,
industrial worker and ex-convict Jensen Ames finds out the steel mill he works at is closing,
and they aren't even paying the workers the full amount they owe him. As the workers start getting
agitated, the anti-riot police arrive and begin beating them up at the smallest of provocations,
and seeing his coworkers get hurt causes Jensen to jump into the fray and beat some cops in return.
Night has already fallen by the time he makes it home. After saying hello to his wife, Jensen
checks on his baby upstairs, unaware that a masked criminal is taking this chance to break into the
house and kill his wife. When Jensen returns to the kitchen, the man knocks him out, puts the
murder weapon in Jensen's hand, and leaves after making a shooting gesture with his gloved hand.
Jensen wakes up moments later to find the police arresting him for the murder of his wife.
Six months later, Jensen is transferred to Terminal Island Prison, where he is received by
Guard Ulrich, who sprays him with freezing water, allows another cop to hit him, and takes him to a
cell with three other prisoners who intend to beat him up. Ulrich comes to check on him, wanting to
enjoy seeing him in trouble, but Jensen is a good fighter and has knocked all his cellmates out.
The next morning, Jensen goes to the chow hall to have breakfast while being observed by Coach,
Gunner and Lists, who recognizes Jensen as a former record-holder driver that killed his
career. The hall suddenly falls silent when Pachenko and his friend approach Jensen to
provoke him, first by spitting on his food, then calling him a woman killer and a kid abuser.
Jensen reacts by jumping on Pachenko to beat him up, but they're soon interrupted by the cops, who
take Jensen to see Claire Hennessey, the prison warden. She's seen Jensen's record and knows he's
a fantastic driver, so she makes him an offer: she wants him to become the new Frankenstein.
The real one died on the operation table after his last race, but nobody knows this yet,
so anyone could replace him under the mask. Frank was an audience's favorite and a very
inspiring legend, which is why Hennessey doesn't want the world to know he's dead,
she needs the legend to continue and bring back the ratings, which have drastically fallen since
the real Frank died. The rules say that if you win five races you earn your freedom,
so Jensen would only need to win one more because Frankenstein already had four under his belt.
Jensen is still unsure about possibly risking his life for this, but Hennessey threatens
him with solitary confinement if he doesn't accept so he can't tell anybody her secret.
Jensen has no other choice but to go along with it. Afterward, he's taken to the prison's auto
shop, where he's introduced to Coach and his men, who are the mechanics in charge of Frankenstein's
car and will guide Jensen through the basics. Each team has its own pit, and nobody helps each other;
there's also a giant shop where Hennessey has been building something in secret for a month.
The only ones that will know Jensen is the new Frankenstein are his team and very few guards,
because Hennessey's power over the prison is absolute. Then Coach shows him the car he'll
be driving, a modified Mustang V8 Fastback. It comes with a variety of both defensive
and offensive gadgets, but it doesn't get loaded with ammo until race day so that prisoners can't
use it to try to escape. It's impossible to do so anyway, because the prison is on an island,
so the only way out is through a small bridge that would get swarmed with police cars and helicopters
at the first indication of prison break. Once Jensen has acquainted himself with the car, he
and the team continue their chat at the prison's backyard. The race has three stages, during the
first two he must try to get rid of as many opponents as he can, and during the third one,
the key is speed to make it to the finish line. All drivers count with a navigator companion,
which are girls brought from the women's facility. The one exception to this rule is Joe, who prefers
to have a fellow team member as navigator instead of a girl because he goes through them so fast, it
makes the audience squeamish. Lists starts telling Jensen about the most important drivers then,
who are all in the yard with them. There's 14k, a triad member and MIT graduate; Hector Grimm,
a certified psychopath that worships Hennessey; Slovo Pachenko, leader of the Aryan Brotherhood in
the prison; and Travis Colt, a disgraced ex-NASCAR superstar. Their talk is suddenly interrupted when
Joe and his team come over to insult Jensen and leave a message for Frankenstein saying this race
is only between the two of them. At the moment, a van brings back some inmates that have been doing
work detail, and Jensen notices something peculiar on their wrists: they have GPS tracking bracelets,
and seeing them makes him realize the man that killed his wife was wearing one as well.
When the day for the first race stage finally comes, Jensen is given Frank's clothes, mask,
and even his ring to wear, and his mere presence brings back all the viewers the show had lost.
Coach tells him not to talk to the other drivers because Frank didn't, it was part of his mystique,
but he's allowed to take off his mask inside the car because the windows are made of mirrored glass
and Case also knows the secret. While getting ready, Jensen asks her what she's in prison for,
and she admits having killed a cop for being a bad husband to her. The race starts a moment later,
and since weapons don't activate until the second of three laps, the beginning isn't very violent,
although the drivers still try to push each other off the track. Thanks to Case's knowledge
of the area, it's easy for Jensen to go head-to-head with Joe at the very front,
managing to pass him into first place when Case points out a shortcut he can take.
It's then that Hennessey turns on the shield and weapons, which are manholes on the ground that a
driver needs to go over with all four wheels to activate their car gadgets. Soon there is open
fire on the track, and when Hennessey activates the death heads too, Grimm kills a minor driver
by pushing his car against it. He also causes Joe to fall behind after shooting oil at his car,
but he loses the race when 14K pushes him off track with a missile and Joe runs him over.
Meanwhile, Jensen manages to activate the weapons, but the machine gun gets stuck, so Case gets on
the hood of the car to fix it, causing the others to concentrate their bullets on her.
Jensen's skills allow him to dodge them all though, and Case returns safely to the
passenger seat afterward. Jensen steals a defense manhole from Colt, but as it happened to Frank,
none of his defense systems will work, and the rear shield won't survive much longer.
Luckily, Jensen thinks of a plan on the spot: he makes Case unhook the napalm and sit on his lap,
so he can launch her chair with the napalm on it. It's Colt's car that gets hit, and now that it's
covered with napalm, Case throws the car's lighter at it, lighting it on fire and getting him off the
race. With Colt gone, Jensen goes head-to-head with Joe again, but he is suddenly distracted by
Pachenko, who makes the same hand gesture the man that killed his wife made at him before leaving.
Joe takes advantage of this and pushes Jensen's car back, causing him to come last
while Pachenko gets first place. Three drivers are dead, and six remain for the second stage.
After the race, Coach and his men check the car and notice the gadgets are working properly,
so it doesn't explain why they wouldn't activate when they had to. Jensen goes to see Hennessey
to tell her he won't race anymore because he knows Pachenko killed his wife and all this
has been a set-up to frame him so she could get a new driver to replace Frankenstein.
She doesn't admit to it, but she does show him a picture of his daughter and the foster home she's
gone to, reminding Jensen that he should play along if he wants to see his daughter again.
Not being able to do anything about it, Jensen goes back to the yard, where he chats with Coach
and asks him why he doesn't wear a number. Coach explains he is technically not a prisoner anymore,
he qualified for parole three years ago, but he couldn't make bring himself to cross the gate. The
world had changed too much, and he preferred the familiarity of the races. He also doesn't believe
Jensen killed his wife. Later in the evening, while working on the car, Jensen sees Pachenko
passing by and decides to follow him to his pit, where he gets captured by Pachenko's team.
He punches Jensen a couple of times before grabbing a heavy tool to smash his head,
not caring if he has Hennesey's protection, but he's stopped by Lists, who stabs him on
his back with a pen. Jensen takes advantage of the distraction to grab a metal shard from the
ground and stab his captor, then he knocks him and his friend out before going after Pachenko.
He punches him, throws him around, and hits him with various boxes until Pachenko admits Hennessey
made him kill his wife and Ulrich was the one to take him there. When Jensen gets ready to kill him
in revenge, Ulrich shows up with another guard and stops the fight. The next day, right before the
second stage of the race begins, Pachenko teases Jensen by making the same hand gesture at him.
However, Jensen doesn't fall for the provocation - in fact, he starts driving slowly on purpose and
takes a tunnel so he can talk to Case in private. He wonders if she killed Frank because he finds
it suspicious that the car's gadgets malfunctioned two races in a row, and he threatens her to expell
her off the car if she doesn't answer. Case admits having sabotaged Frank's rear weapons
because Hennessey would reward her with her freedom. The goal was never to kill Frank, though,
that was an accident caused by him still trying to win with no weapons; Hennessey's goal was to make
him lose to keep him in prison, racing for the public. Now that he has his answer, Jensen speeds
up and easily slides back into the race, ignoring Joe for now - his objective this time is Pachenko.
After the two of them unsuccessfully try to push each other off the track,
Jensen drives ahead and takes the weapons manhole instead of defense. This confuses everyone because
the weapons are at the front of the car, so Jensen surprises them by suddenly turning the car
around and opening fire on Pachenko while driving backward. After he's damaged the other car enough,
he turns around again and hits the smoke, causing Pachenko to crash against a concrete barrier.
Then Jensen stops his car and gets out to approach Pachenko and break his neck as revenge for his
killing his wife. Between this and Joe deciding to change his navigator in the middle of the race,
Hennessey decides it's the right moment to release the thing she's been building all this time:
a multi-weapon tanker truck called Dreadnought. This truck is incredibly powerful and quickly
catches up with the drivers, immediately killing two minor competitors. Since it belongs to the
warden, it also has the benefit of being allowed inside the buildings, which lets
it take a shortcut and appear at the front of the race. The Dreadnought slowly kills 14K's navigator
before grabbing his car with chains and shooting at it until it explodes, which means only Jensen
and Joe are left. There is no way they can defeat such a monster without a proper plan,
so Jensen asks Lists to connect his communicator to Joe's car and they agreed to work together.
They flank the truck with their cars, doing their best to dodge any incoming attacks,
and when a trap manhole appears in front of them, each of them hits it with two wheels, getting the
four needed to activate it. This causes the tap to come up and the truck to crash against it. Now
the second stage of the race is over, and Jensen and Joe will be the only drivers making it to the
third. Later in the evening, Joe comes over to Jensen's pit to point out his voice suspiciously
sounds a lot like Frank's, but he doesn't push for answers. Meanwhile, Ulrich and Hennessey
decide that they need to kill Jensen since the Frankenstein mask can still be worn by someone
else in the future. The following day, before the race starts, Ulrich puts a bomb under Jensen's car
while Hennessey distracts everyone with a speech about racing being their life's purpose. When she
mentions this may be the first time someone may win their freedom with a fifth victory,
Jensen realizes that they always rig the races to eliminate anyone that could possibly win for the
fifth time and that's why nobody has ever achieved it before, which means he won't be allowed to win
today either. Coach hears this conclusion and, once they're allowed to go back to the auto-shop,
decides to show Jensen a very important detail on a video of Grimm's death. This gives him an idea
for a plan, and he asks Lists to add a half-gallon reserve tank to his car before going to Joe's
pit to ask him to collaborate with him again. While Jensen is changing into Frank's clothes,
Hennessey visits him to give him his release papers and to make him a new offer: if he wins,
she wants him to stay in prison and continue to be Frankenstein because the track is where belongs.
She claims he isn't daddy material and an ex-con couldn't give his daughter a good life,
so choosing to stay would be an incredible unselfish act of love. Jensen goes to join
the race without giving her an answer yet, but he does put away the release papers in his pocket.
When he gets in his car, Case admits Hennessey also spoke to her and asked her to stop Jensen if
he was about to win, but he doesn't worry about it. As soon as the race begins, Ulrich starts
controlling the manholes so they only activate when Joe goes over them. He opens fire at Jensen
as soon as he is able to, damaging his back shield so much that Jensen decides to drop it.
However, Joe easily dodges it, having already learned the trick from when Frank did the same.
Hennessey activates a defense manhole for Jensen to take in order to keep the viewers interested,
but Joe launches a rocket at it, destroying it. He has more rockets to go and he launches them all at
Jensen, who dodges them and lets them hit a wall. This wall was the one behind Grimm when he died,
and it's already weakened because of that old explosion. So today Jensen and Joe have been
calculating their attacks for them to land on the weak spot, and now the rockets hit it for a final
blow that opens a hole and allows them to escape the prison. Furious, Hennessey ends the stream
and sends all available cops after them before pressing the bomb detonator, but nothing happens.
Coach and his men had already removed the bomb from the car and deactivated it. Joe and Jensen
make it to the bridge, but the police cars are getting closer, so it's time to pull the next
part of his plan: Jensen releases that extra half gallon reserve tank, which hits the cars behind
them, causing an explosion and a wall of fire that prevents any other cars from chasing them.
Both convicts manage to cross the bridge gates and take two different roads so that all the
helicopters only follow Jensen, who is the most important of the two. As Joe drives away,
Case agrees to help Jensen with the last part of his plan because
she owes it to Frank and Hennessey has already given her the release papers,
so they'll be obliged to let her go. When they are passing by some construction cranes, Jensen
jumps off the car under their shadows and hides in there while Case takes his place at the wheel. She
only gets to drive a couple of miles more before the helicopters stop her with a wall of fire, but
when she comes out of the car with her hands up, she's wearing Frank's clothes and mask. Since most
people don't know about the identity exchange, the cops arrest her and take her back to the prison,
allowing Jensen to escape and meet with Joe so they can board a freight train together.
Back in the prison offices, Ulrich says the ratings are off the charts and congratulating
gifts are already arriving. Hennessey opens the gift box he's brought and finds the bomb
Ulric had put under Jensen's car, which then explodes, killing them both. Outside in the track,
Coach can be seen having pressed the detonator. Six months later, Joe and Jensen have made a
new life in Santa Rosalia, Mexico. They work together as mechanics in their own auto shop,
and Jensen has regained custody of his daughter. Case visits them too after her
release papers finally get processed, bringing with her a racing car for them to check out.