the audience applauded

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A hardened bunch of violent criminals are sent to a remote wooded island for an internet contest. There is only one rule: kill all the other contestants and the lone survivor will be given an amnesty Did someone mention BATTLE ROYALE ? What I find interesting is the large number of films I've seen recently that seemed directly - or should I say too directly ? - inspired by other works . Some of them are direct pastiche/homages to other films so I guess post modernism is at play . However some of them just seem to be lazy cash ins of much superior movies . What one do you think THE CONDEMNED might be ? I'll give you a clue . It stars Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones so that drops a very large hint that it's low grade straight to DVD fare when it gives hints it could have been so much better It does get off to a relatively good start with a biting comment on the state of Western culture that we seem a little bit too interested in both the internet and reality TV . A station merges the two morbid obsessions and sets up a pay site where viewers can access the ulitimate gladiatorial contest featuring a group of violent psychos kill one another . It's not original and it's a little bit loud and in your face but again it does give a hint at social commentary . This quickly becomes forgotten as the story then concentrates on the violence . There's a problem with using this as a story and that is if you're watching a film centered around people killing one another you need to draw a clear line between the good guys and the bad guys because who wants to watch a totally amoral film ? This means it becomes predictable in that the good guy is someone innocent of the terrible crimes he's been convicted of while the bad guys are bad guys because they're guilty of their crimes and just enjoy violence for the sake of it . The characters are merely walking clichés lacking any depth and the film's selling point is the violence which means it ends up becoming very ironic as the station chief argues that violence is what the audience want . Want one wants is a new cerebral twist on a familiar story

The Condemned starts as ten hardened condemned to execution on death row prison inmates from around the world are flown by helicopter to an isolated & remote island in the Pacific, they have been 'brought' by ambitious television producer Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) who is planning to stage a live reality internet broadcast called The Condemned. The aim of the show is simple, the ten condemned inmates are dropped off on the island & the one still alive after thirty hours gains their freedom but only one can walk away, with plastic explosive strapped to their ankles the inmates have no choice but to play. Wrongly imprisoned ex secret service ops Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) is brought in as a last minute replacement from a prison in El Salvador & starts to turn the game against Brecknel in a bid for freedom & revenge...Co-written & directed by Scott Wiper this modern take on the basic premise of The Most Dangerous Game (1932) is actually a pretty decent film, I would struggle to call it a great film but it is good solid action fare that also tries to have a strong moral message which is both an asset & a hindrance but more on that later. The Condemned updates the theme of a lone man being hunted with the odds stacked against him by setting the events up as part of an elaborate internet based reality show where subscribers pay to see hardened inmates kill & abuse each other, the mixing of the survivalist genre & reality show works surprisingly well here although surely the whole affair is illegal & every Government in the world would be after Brecknel. Most of the condemned inmates don't have much depth apart from Conrad & McStarley with the other's simply being cannon fodder to increase the body count & provide a fight every few minutes, the script tries to make out that Brecknel the producer is the real villain for his brutal exploitation & staging of events. Now, the script does try to make the point that watching violence is bad which seems a bit hypocritical & there are a few speeches denouncing & questioning the show & scenes of people cheering on the action that reinforce this message but feel out of place & stand out uncomfortably in a film which obviously wants to appeal to that very audience, the type of audience that enjoy wrestling & Steve Austin is surely the type of audience that would lap a show like The Condemned up if it ever became a reality as wrestling is surely nothing more than grown men beating each other up & while it stops short of people getting killed I think you can see the point I am making. Or then again maybe The Condemned is really just an anti reality television show film, now that's an idea I can relate too...At almost two hours long The Condemned runs at a decent pace & never really lags or becomes boring, I would maybe have liked to see a bit more varied action though. The fights are brutal & weapons are introduced later on which adds some spice but other than an exploding helicopter there's nothing else over the fights. There's an implied rape, some blood splatter & a guy is impaled on a wooden stake after being thrown out of a helicopter. At the end when Brecknel is in the helicopter why did it just hover there? Why not fly off into the distance? Why wait for Steve Austin to thrown a bomb on-board (that was a bloody good shot by the way wasn't it?)? The final confrontation between Austin & Vinnie Jones is also a bit underwhelming & isn't so much a brutal fight to the death confrontation as a very harsh conversation. While the quick machine gun editing of recent action films is absent the jerky hand-held nature of some fights aren't & The Condemned sometimes becomes a blurred mess which is a shame as the fights do look good otherwise.With an opening box-office weekend of just over $3,000,000 I think it's safe to say that The Condemned was a flop, although set on some remote island The Condemned was actually shot in Australia & does look quite nice at times. The acting is alright, Vinnie Jones is amusing & gets some nice one-liners although wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin is just very wooden & lacks any charisma or personality, no-one else stands out that much to be honest.The Condemned is better than average action fare with a solid plot that steals from a classic & adds a modern twist quite effectively but the overriding message that watching violence is bad & those who make, distribute & profit from it are also evil is a paradox in the sense anyone who enjoys The Condemned is bad & the makers who made it are evil themselves. Work that one out.

I saw a trailer for this film, I assume it is a straight to DVD feature, but I was really interested to try it because it sounded like a cool premise. Basically TV producer Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) is looking for ten of the most dangerous criminals on death row to take part in his new big reality show, "The Condemned". The criminal he most wants for the show, which will be streamed on the internet, is American Jack Conrad (wrestler Steve Austin) who was being held in a Central American prison. The show creators have managed to get these ten criminals, Conrad, British Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones), Japanese Go Saiga (Masa Yamaguchi), Yasantwa Adei (Emelia Burns) from Ghana, Mexican husband Paco Pacheco (Manu Bennett) and wife Rosa (Dasi Ruz), American Kreston Mackie (Marcus Johnson), Estonian Petr Raudsep (Nathan Jones), German Helmut Bruggerman (Andy McPhee) and Italian Dominic Giangrasso (Rai Fazio). The game is simple, the ten prisoners are dropped onto an unknown tropical island with bombs attached to their legs, these will explode if they tamper, go beyond the boundaries or pull a pin. The aim of the game is to be the last one living, the winner will apparently be paid a big cash amount, and be allowed to go free. So they are all dropped, and one by one they die in grizzly ways as each member fights for their life and kills any of the other contestants with weapons provided and cameras watching their every move. One or two of the prisoners agree to team up, and obviously the husband and wife won't be doing anything to each other, but Conrad's only goal is to find a way off the island or get help from the authorities. Breckel also has only one care, to get at least 40,000,000 viewers and subscribers to the website and live streaming, and he doesn't care what the prisoners are doing to get that, whether it be dying, raping or killing. After many kills and only two survivors remaining, it is just the savage McStarley and the less ferocious Conrad remaining to fight to the death. It appears that McStarley is the winner of the game after he shoots Conrad, but he is not dead, and he manages to kill McStarley, and also Breckel and the nasty production team who captured him. Also starring Victoria 'Tory' Mussett as Julie, Madeleine West as Sarah Cavanaugh, Rick Hoffman as 'Goldy' Goldman, Christopher Baker as Eddie C, Samantha 'Sam' Healy as Bella and Luke Pegler as Baxter. Austin makes a good butch anti-villain, and Jones is fantastic as the cocky and sarcastic rapist criminal, it is a film that borrows the premise of Battle Royale, people forced to kill each other with bombs on them, but the criminal element is quite original, and the violence helps too, it is a good fun action thriller. Okay!

The Condemned is an action film that sounds good in the concept but I've noticed one too many similarities to Battle Royale. Ten prisoners on death row are gathered together by some TV producer to participate in the game, on a remote island, with the goal to kill each other within a limited time. To further force the criminals to participate, explosive collars have been placed around their ankles which can be detonated at will. Sound familiar. Battle Royale follows a very similar storyline but with Japanese students instead of criminals. This was likely changed to adult criminals to avoid major controversy in the USA.The Condemned can be a fun action film if you turn your brain off for a while, with some decent fighting scenes but that's about it. The characters are pretty bland save perhaps the Japanese guy and Vinnie Jones when he's funny, and the music was pretty shoddy save Savin' Me by Nickelback. Pardon me for comparing is much to BR but it felt like it was a cheap attempt to remake the film whilst trying to sneak it past the American censors.