Death Race 2000 (1975)

Absolutely Brilliant!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

I hadn't seen this movie in...IDK...35 years? But, it's always been in the back of my mind. I recalled it being irreverent, sexy and cool. I guess it still is all of those things, but to a much lesser degree than I remembered.*SPOILER ALERT*Probably the character who aged the best is the gossip news woman. Her role as a heartless ratings chaser tickled me; I don't think I even would've noticed her role back in the day.Other than that, Carradine was flat and monotone throughout; Stallone was one-dimensional; and the rest were also-rans.Recommendation: If you can rent it for under $5, go ahead. But, don't spend $12 on the DVD like me.

Set in the near future, this action comedy focuses on a televised automobile race in which drivers are rewarded for killing pedestrians while racing between the USA east and west coasts. Delightfully offbeat as this premise is, things get even more interesting as it is revealed that the race is government sanctioned and that the US President has used the race, preying on America's bloodlust, to boost popularity and win multiple elections in a wildly distorted, post-economic crisis political landscape. This is a film that can be enjoyed all social commentary aside though. The racecars are a wonder to behold, bearing teeth and horns to look animalistic, the action scenes are memorable and bits and pieces of the film are kooky in the best possible way: nurses wheeling out senior citizens to be run over in a euthanasia cleanse; resistance fighters sabotaging the races with fake tunnels, landmines and bombs disguised as babies (!). Lead actor David Carradine has a very interesting character too; nicknamed Frankenstein, he has supposedly undergone significant facial scarring and constant body part replacements as a result of all his crashes over the years, but this is soon revealed to be a rouse to dupe his supporters into believing him to be superhuman. The supporting performances are unfortunately wildly uneven and the film overstays its welcome by around five minutes with an inappropriate upbeat conclusion, but for the most part, it is an encapsulating ride throughout its economic eighty minute runtime. For a low budget project, it boasts some nifty futuristic sets too.

In a fascist dystopia future, five racers; Calamity Jane, Matilda the Hun, Nero the Hero, Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone) and Frankenstein (David Carradine) travel across the country to win the TransContinental Roadrace. Running over people scores the racers points. Annie Smith is Frankenstein's navigator and possibly plans to kill him as part of an anti-race resistance.It's a campy cult classic. This world is outrageous and silly. However it's a one-joke world and not that funny. It may be a good drinking game. There is no doubt of the movie's camp credentials. It isn't anything more than that.

"Death Race 2000" seems like it was tailor-made for the midnight movie crowd. Gonzo is the word that comes to mind. You can't help but chuckle at some of the gleeful violence in such a roughly hewn movie, and the acting herein varies from wooden to cheesy (and a big draw is watching Stallone ham it up in that hair). Not to mention David Carradine in the bondage Darth Vader getup.It's all too ridiculous and that's its charm. Like watching the love child of "Cannonball Run", "The Running Man" and "Mad Max". Which really doesn't seem doable anywhere else but on paper; but here, it works. 6.5/10