DEATH RACE 2

US, 2010, 96 minutes. Colour.
Luke Goss, Lauren Cohan, Sean Bean, Ving Rhames, Tanit Phoenix, Danny Trejo.
Directed by Roel Reine.

Death Race 2 is a straight-to-video prequel to the 2008 Death Race (a remake of Death Race 2000 from 1975). This film explains the character who died at the beginning of Death Race, the Frankenstein car driver, played by Luke Goss. In Death Race, the car races to the death were part of a media exploitation of prisoners.

In this film, all loud action and crashing, the focus is on fights in prison where Carl Lucas is involved fighting other prisoners. A television executive sees this and sees it as an opportunity for exploitation television.

Lucas has been the getaway driver for a criminal played by Sean Bean. When an attempted robbery ends in failure, and there is a chase and car crash where Lucas is imprisoned, his boss is out to get him killed in prison. While he wins in the fights and on the television, Lucas is appreciated as a car driver and this leads to the setting up of the program which became Death Race.