DVD Review: The Human Race

By Brad Henderson

These days it feels some films are made because of their “twists.” Please stop. Twists are fun and they work some of the time, but if you have a cool minor idea for a twist, please don’t build a very subpar feature around it.

Recently I had the chance to watch The Human Race, which wasn’t a bad movie at all. This review will take more of a negative approach but I don’t want to discourage anyone from watching anything. I take film very personally; it is special to me and I want every film to do well. I hate to see any film suffer and I definitely don’t ever want to contribute to something like that.

The Human Race is put together in a very clever way and it is presented perfectly. It establishes exposition and character development and doesn’t make it tedious. Sometimes it’s hard to present exposition because it feels forced or even needless, but it is required. With indie films it is a little harder because there are no “stars” or huge action sequences, so these films rely a lot on the characters and motivations.

The down side to this is that you can easily bore your audience because they don’t understand the difference between an indie film and a Hollywood blockbuster. To the general public, all films are made in Hollywood and everyone behind the films is a billionaire. Sadly, that isn’t the case. (It is a tough industry but that is a different story.) That said, with films like this you need to grab your audience quickly and that is one thing The Human Race does.

The Human Race starts in total anarchy but establishes its rules quickly. There are scenes that take our major and minor characters and give them the exposition that is needed. This way we can see what the majority of the characters’ motivations are and why they want to survive. Of course, everyone wants to survive but sometimes it’s different if we get the full background on the characters’ livelihoods or reasoning why they absolutely have to survive. This is another thing that The Human Race gets right.

My main issue with the film is the overall story. I dug it to an extent but all in all it’s just another play on The Most Dangerous Game with a “twist.” This honestly seems like it was a short story that was developed into a feature but with a lot of subpar filler material. There are also long sequences including two deaf people who use sign language the whole time. We have to rely on the subtitles, which are cool and all, but it goes on for way too long and gets tedious at times. It is unusual to watch two actors show every ounce of emotion through their faces without using a bit of dialogue. I appreciated that aspect of The Human Race but it just didn’t flow well with the rest of the film.

The Human Race isn’t a bad film and I’m sure it will find its audience. Personally, I’m tired of stories that borrow elements from The Most Dangerous Game and I’m also tired of films being based entirely around a plot twist and unfortunately, this seemed to be exactly what The Human Race was doing.

The Human Race will be released on DVD via XLrator Media on July 22.