Death Race

In a near-future United States where prisons have been handed over to private corporations, the overcrowded Terminal Island penitentiary hosts a brutal motorsport spectacle. Inmates drive weaponized cars around a closed arena in a three-day race staged for a paying audience, and the event's organizers have turned the violence into a lucrative broadcast. Jensen Ames, a former racing champion convicted of a murder he did not commit, is forced to compete under the masked identity of Frankenstein, a crowd favorite presumed impossible to kill. To survive and clear his name, he must last the full race against the prison's most dangerous criminals, including his rival Machine Gun Joe.

Paul W. S. Anderson directed and wrote the screenplay, and produced alongside Jeremy Bolt and Roger Corman. The film is the seventh of fourteen titles he has directed in chronological order, following AVP: Alien vs. Predator and preceding Resident Evil: Afterlife. Jason Statham leads as Jensen Ames, with Joan Allen as Warden Hennessey, Ian McShane as Coach, Tyrese Gibson as Machine Gun Joe Mason, Natalie Martinez as Elizabeth Case and Max Ryan as Pachenko. The credited cast totals 42 and the crew 371.

Made for about 45 million dollars, the film took roughly 76 million dollars worldwide, a modest return. On IMDb it holds 6.4 from 228,000 votes; on TMDB, 6.3 from 4,267 votes. A critics' rating of 5.2 from 155 reviews places it slightly below both audience scores.