The Condemned

2007

Director: Scott Wiper
Action director: Richard Norton
Producer: Joel Simon
Writers: Scott Wiper, Rob Hedden
Cinematography: Ross Emery
Music: Graeme Revell
Editing: Derek Brechin

Stars: Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones, Robert Mammone, Tory Mussett, Manu Bennett, Madeline West, Rick Hoffman, Christopher Baker, Masa Yamaguchi, Nathan Jones

Rated R for violence and language

Like their in-ring output, the WWE Films ouvere has been based on action that's big, dumb, and surprisingly entertaining at points. The Condemened is certainly no exception -- this is a total "dude's movie", filled to the brim with gratutious violence and lots of shit blowing up real good. If that's the sort of thing you're into, this picture's right up your alley.

In the film, Steve Austin ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin to all you rasslin' fans out there) plays Jack Conrad, who's in a Central American prison awaiting the death penalty for a reason that's never specified -- though it probably has something to do with his military background. At any rate, Jack, along with eight other condemned convicts, are shipped to a remote island, where they are to fight to the death, with the last survivor gaining their freedom. Of course, all of this will be shown to the world via a streaming pay-per-view internet feed.

So The Condemened is basically a re-hashing of several films, from The Running Man to Battle Royale, and on that scale, it definitely falls towards The Running Man side of things. There are a few laughable attempts at social commentary espoused by some of the characters when they can't stomach what they are showing to the world. Taking the movie's somewhat jovial tone into account, I don't know if the film-makers were trying to be serious. But if they were, they'd better take a look in the mirror, because The Condemened is an incredibly violent movie. It gets to the point of being a bit tasteless at points, most notably during a secne that infers the rape of a woman.

Still, for the most part, action director Richard Norton (yep, that guy from all those low budget Godfrey Ho and Cynthia Rothrock movies) does a good job in creating some pretty solid fight scenes. They're nothing extradordinary, but they definitely get the job done. When you combine that with a couple of charismatic leads in Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones, The Condemened ends up with all of the right ingredients for a good couple of hours worth of mindless entertainment.

RATING: 7