Glistening torso Jensen Ames (the ubiquitous Jason Statham), a good man in a savage near-future, is framed for the murder of his sweet wife in this loose remake of the 1975 cult favorite Death Race 2000. Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson spares us the laboriously cerebral trial and sends Ames straight to prison to participate in the gladiatorial Death Race, a heavily armed NASCAR where winners get their freedom and losers get a brutal death. He soon learns he was framed by the warden, Hennessy (a stiff Joan Allen), and in a blizzard of shaky cameras and quick cuts, he vies for vengeance and freedom. The film shamelessly sacrifices what little reality it has for crowd-pleasing bullshit: the female prisoners are sexy supermodels, and why not? Anderson has created a B-movie full of noise and color that the lobotomized can enjoy. 89 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle + Suburbs
