The Condemned (R)

I probably saw “The Condemned” for the first time when I was around 13 years old. For a 13-year-old kid, an R-rated movie that features a death match on an island was a hell of a time. But now I’m in 23, I’ve seen the far superior “Battle Royale” and I know better now than thinking this is a good movie. 

The concept’s half-decent: 10 death row inmates from third world countries are purchased by a rich television producer, Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone), to fight to the death on a desolate island. The sole survivor wins their freedom. The carnage is broadcast as a major Pay-Per-View event on the Internet, and people can watch death online for the cheap price of $49.99 USD.  

The actual star of the movie is wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin who plays the American Jack Conrad, who’s being held in a prison in El Salvador for blowing up a building, killing three. He becomes one of the show’s headliners as a last-minute replacement, because Breckel thinks people are going to “love to hate this cowboy.” 

He makes it easy for people hate him since he authors a false profile that he’s an arsonist and KKK member from Arkansas who burned down a Baptist church, because blowing up a building that only kills three is too boring. 

The producer who orchestrates all of this is incredibly one-dimensional and only cares about hitting Super Bowl numbers, so about 40 million viewers. When they reach 12 million viewers he says “still no Super Bowl.” The actor kind-of reminds me of Jeremy Piven on “Entourage,” but the character’s like an Ari Gold-type without any of the charm. 

Through his character, the film attempts to be a commentary on how all reality television is rigged in some way or manufactured – but it’s a bit stupid because he frequently says it’s not his doing, he just put them there and he has no influence. “It’s essential entertainment,” he says as one character’s beaten to death. He’s also a dick to his friends that try to tell him what he’s doing is morally wrong. 

It also tries to be a commentary that people really love violence in entertainment. The commentary’s really just not that smart – as a WWE film, it has much more of a focus on the frequent action. 

The action’s fine but its pacing is interrupted constantly by the film’s commentary that all the violence going on is wrong, as well as the feds trying to find out where the island is. Though the one-on-one combat on the island gets repetitive, too, since the stakes never feel high when Conrad’s in the fight since he’s the main character. The characterization’s also just weak as he makes somewhat of an alliance with Paco (Manu Bennett) just because he doesn’t kill him and Paco’s looking for his wife, also on the island.

The main villain’s Ewan McStarling (Vinnie Jones) who makes an alliance with a guy from Japan named Saiga, which we never actually learn because he doesn’t speak any English. So that just means there’s no characterization. McStarling’s an army man from the United Kingdom and is belligerent and obnoxious.

There’s not a lot of characterization for many of the characters – as we literally learn half of the convict’s names only when they die and their name gets crossed out on a computer monitor. Even the characters that do have some development, they’re not handled well. Another American on the island, Kreston Mackie (Marcus Johnson), is just there and his crime makes me question why he’s there in the first place. He’s also simply really boring. 

A Mexican couple, Paco and Rosa (Dasi Ruiz), should have an interesting sub-plot as a couple trying to survive but Rosa’s character is utilized more as a tool to make us hate McStarling more. It’s a missed opportunity – because if it was handled better they could have been a lot more interesting than the main character’s story. 

McStarling’s a bad villain, mostly characterized by being a ruthless military man who’s killed 17 men and raped nine women. This bad exposition’s given by a head of security guy named Baxter (Luke Pegler). He looks like a Ryan Reynolds type and his haircut and character’s so generic I thought he died at least three times. He has even worse dialogue when he’s telling everyone how the game’s going to play out. “It’s a simple game. Kill or die.” If he’s going to be a cliché, the writers might as well make him say the actual “kill or be killed” phrase. 

The writing’s just weak and the cinematography isn’t great either. Though, obviously there was something I liked about this when I was younger. But revisiting it, it’s not entertaining and just a good “Battle Royale” concept with super crappy execution. 

– by Daniel Prinn