DEATH RACE 2000 (1975)

 

DIRECTED by Paul Bartel

SCREENPLAY by Robert Thorn & Charles B. Griffith - based on the short story "The Racer" by I.B. Melchior.

STARRING  - David Carradine as Frankenstein,  Simone Griffeth as Annie Smith,  Sylvester Stallone as Joe "Machine Gun" Viterbo,  Mary Woronov as Jane "Calamity Jane" Kelly,  Roberta Collins as Matilda the Hun,  Martin Cove as Ray "Nero the Hero" Lonagan.

PLOT  - It is the year 2000 - the future.

The once mighty nation of America has collapsed due to a socio-economic breakdown. The country is now ruled by a fascistic government looking to distract and control the population via a deadly new form of entertainment - The Transcontinental Road Race.

Every year, the racers burn across the roads and highways of America - points are awarded for the fastest times and the most pedestrians run over. Every human life that is snuffed out under the wheels of the racer's turbocharged vehicles is worth valuable points.

In this dystopia - nobody - Man, Woman or child is safe from being smeared across the tarmac by hot, rubber wheels.

This years race - the 20th - has a wide variety of bloodthirsty drivers. 

First there is the man known only as Frankenstein - a black leather clad mystery man, a cyborg due to the many crashes he has survived in previous races.

Frankenstein's main rival is "Machine Gun" Viterbo - a gun toteing Chicago gangster of the old school. Viterbo has been bested before by Frankenstein and this year he intends to win at any cost.

The other racers are "Calamity Jane" - A country girl with a long streak of mean. The beautiful but deadly neo-Nazi - Matilda the Hun, and "Nero" - a man who self styles himself after the ancient Roman gladiators, however, where as the gladiators of old where men of honour, Nero most certainly, is not.

Into this chaos, there is also a resistance group at large, opposed to the race, they are slowly picking off the contestants one by one by means of ambushes and death traps.

Who will win the race ? This year, only one can survive...

DIALOUGE  -  Cleopatra the navigator ( to Nero)  - "If they scatter -  go for the baby and the mother."   Nero -  "Goodbye Baby ! Hello 200 points !!!!!"

Matilda the Hun - "Well, what does she expect ?  You leave your navigator lying around, naturally, somebody is going to run over him."

PERFORMANCES  - Everybody in this film is great. There are no subtle performances in this film and neither should there be, after all, it is supposed to be an O.T.T, satirical, comic book style romp.

Carradine makes for a suitably cool and enigmatic hero as Frankenstein. His cold, cruel looking face hardly betrays any emotion at the horrors he is complicit in. In fact, you can't really term a man who runs over innocent pedestrians as a hero. He sees his prey as collateral damage on the road to his ulterior objective. This objective turns out NOT to be merely winning the race, for Frankenstein has a much nobler aim in the long term. I won't ruin the ending of the film by revealing what this aim is, but suffice it to say, it does - kind of - redeem him. Frankenstein is a very multi-layered character. On the one hand he's a consumate showman - forever playing up to his personna as the scarred, maimed survivor, never revealing his face to anyone except for his navigator - Annie - who he embarks on an affair with over the course of the film. Even in these more romantic moments he comes across as very cold and callous.

Gradually, the many layers of this man peel away like an onion skin - we learn that his hideously disfigured face is not as disfigured as he makes out - he wears a mask under his mask - not very practical when driving a car I would have thought. We also find out near the end of the film what his ultimate aim is, this eleventh hour twist really helps to put the character into perspective and results in a fascinating central protaganist.

The other contestants are all uniformly portrayed brilliantly by thier respective actors. I'm not usually a big fan of Sylvester Stallone  - he really pissed me off by insisting that  he removed his helmet in the 1995 Judge Dredd movie for instance - but he's great fun in this.

Stallone's character is a a psychotic Mafioso styled thug, he's forever in a state of high agitation. He's like a coiled spring ready to go off and when he does - you had better get out of his way, otherwise he'll either machine gun you or run you over as soon as look at you. You're constantly waiting to see what's going to set him off next and it's great.

All performances are heightened to the extreme, matching the movie's gaudy sense of anarchic madness. The TV compares are particularly funny, capturing that annoying, manic energy and excitement that a lot of sports presenters seem to have but given a jet black comedic twist, enthusing as they do on the latest high octane body count.

SFX  - Lots of nice but brief practical gore effects and some brilliant pyrotechnics on display here - this really is a fast paced slice of chaos.

SEX AND VIOLENCE  - Aplenty. There's lots of scenes of pedestrians getting run over, squished, squashed and otherwise shuffling off thier mortal coil in a vehicular aided manner. It's not actually as gory as it sounds - much of the blood is of the blink and you'll miss it variety - the most extreme effect is probably when a bloke gets his head run over, but the film is so fast paced that it doesn't allow itself to linger on these atrocities for very long. 

RATING  -  This film is exactly the wild ride you'd expect it to be from its title. There's some great action, some great laughs (the "hand grenade" moment is comic brilliance), and some marvelously O.T.T. characters.

The movie is like a 2000AD comic strip come to life - like that publication -  it is filled with black humour and satire that's as subtle as a punch in the face.

I loved every minute of it.

I'm going to give it 5 gimp suited Carradine's out of 5.

Feeling a bit run down ? You won't be after watching this.