Pretty neat image from DEATH RACE is up over at First Showing (click on it to see it bigger), showing the villainous Dreadnaught (the bad boy in the middle) making life very tough for some of the racers on Terminal Island – the fictional prison where the movie takes place. What’s especially neat is that I actually got to see this thing in action, as I was on the set of the Paul W.S. Anderson-directed film last October. My set-visit report won’t go up until next week (those’re the rules, kids), but in it I describe how loud this sonofabitch is (it’s loud) and how imposing it looks up close (very).
As for what this flick is about: Three-time speedway champion Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is an expert at survival in the harsh landscape that has become our country. Just as he thinks he has turned his life around, the ex-con is framed for a gruesome murder he didn’t commit. Forced to don the mask of the mythical driver Frankenstein—a crowd favorite who seems impossible to kill—Ames is given an easy choice by Terminal Island’s warden: suit up or rot away in a cell.
Joan Allen plays the evil warden; Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane (who WASN’T there while I was, dammit!), and the unbelievably adorable Natalie Martinez (below) star alongside Statham. The flick will see the light of day on August 22.