Review of The Condemned (2007) by Rob W — 14 Oct 2012

Seem to be on a bit of a run of watching films with a concept of pitting an arena full of randoms against each other in a fight to the death. First it was 'The Tournament', then 'The Hunger Games', and now this.

To be fair, they've all been credible films in their own right, but unfortunately all been a tad predictable too - when are the bad guys ever gonna prevail?! Even in this field of death row mercenaries, we are still unable to get a psychopathic killer Coming out on top.

This time we are treated to a more close combat type of battling with some hefty meatheads pounding each other into the ground, including the legendary Stone Cold Steve Austin! I say legendary, but I've never actually seen a showing of WWE (nor do I want to).

We are also treated to the stereotypical British bad ass style of Mr Vinnie Jones once again. To his credit, he performs the role well, just a pity he only ever performs one type of role. The movie does manage to maintain a credible storyline and level of action throughout as we witness the events of 10 highly dangerous criminals battling it out to the death in order to gain their prize of freedom (plus a little cash)! Controversially, it's all being broadcast live over the Internet by some power hungry entrepreneur, allowing us to witness the contestants eliminating each other in gruesome ways, before the bombs strapped to their ankles all detonate after so many hours of gameplay.

As the dead bodies mount, the production team secretly airing the events come under attack from police, the mercenaries, and from one another, as the horrid events escalate into one big climax. Overall it's fair to say this is a pretty decent watch, but just nothing breathtakingly original about it.