“Death Race” is the kind of movie that makes you wish theaters sold beer. It’s solidly a guys-and-brews-and-pizza feature that once would have been a drive-in staple.

In fact, its inspiration comes from “Death Race 2000,” which was made in 1975, when more than a few drive-ins still existed. B-movie king Roger Corman, who made that movie, is fittingly a producer on this one.

Don’t expect a lot to make sense and don’t expect a lot of incisive dialogue. It’s a Quentin Tarantino movie without the arch movie-snob subversiveness and street talk. Everything’s subservient to the action and there’s plenty of it. Director and writer Paul W.S. Anderson has choreographed a ballet of bullets, blood, banging metal, babes and bad guys.

The time is the near future and America has declined into an economically distressed dystopia. Corporations run prisons and one warden has figured out a way to give Americans the escapism they crave while enlarging her bank account. She stages car races to the death and sells the events on a pay-per-view basis.

Joan Allen, an esteemed serious actress, plays the warden and you have to wonder why she signed on to this exploitation project. She makes Ilsa, She-Wolf of the S.S., look like Mary Poppins. She also looks like she could be the twin of Louise Fletcher’s Big Nurse in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

The warden is in trouble. Her ace driver, a masked terror nicknamed Frankenstein, finally succumbs to his many injuries and the warden wants to keep the legend alive to maintain ratings.

Enter Jensen Ames, a former racing driver played by the glowering and taciturn English tough-guy Jason Statham. Ames has been railroaded into the joint for the murder of his wife. He’s bad-to-the-bone and he agrees to take Frankenstein’s place in order to receive an early release. The warden holds the custody of his baby daughter over his head.

In another curiosity of casting, Ian McShane plays the head of Ames’ pit crew. McShane, who was so memorable in HBO’s “Deadwood,” can always be depended upon to add an extra dimension of interest to any production and his contribution here is no exception. His sardonic observations give this self-consciously serious enterprise some much needed humor.

Ames, of course, needs a navigator and she steps off of a bus from the women’s prison in tight jeans and a low-cut top. Her name is Case and she’s played by the stunning Natalie Martinez. Let us stop here to note that any movie featuring female convicts earns an extra half star.

Ames also needs an on-track rival and he comes in the person of Machine Gun Joe, played by Tyrese Gibson.

Anderson’s collaborators create a pervasive look of aesthetic seediness and the grungy vehicles are all function: armor, machine guns and big engines. Here, the art directors and special effects and stunt crew are as important as the actors.

There’s a target audience that will embrace this clanging tribute to commotion as yet another eagerly anticipated action picture. There are others of us who will note its excesses and exploitation qualities and grapple with guilt over its destructive pleasures. For explosives-loving guys, it’s the “Mamma Mia” trade-off.