The Condemned ***1/2

By Dan Hudak

      Kick. Punch. Stab. Incinerate. Kill.

      It’s not difficult to follow “The Condemned,” a movie so primitively barbaric it makes “300” look like a romantic comedy. But within all the warfare is a near-perfect commentary on America’s obsession with the senseless “reality” programming that currently passes for entertainment. Go for the action, but leave having been entertained and in thought about why we as a culture are so consumed with the nastiness of other people’s lives.

      The premise of director Scott Wiper’s film is partially stolen from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “The Running Man”: ten death row inmates are illegally purchased by a producer named Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) and dumped on an island somewhere in the South Pacific. The objective? “It’s a very simple game: kill or die,” Ian’s assistant Baxter (Luke Pegler) says, with the comforting afterthought being that if you’re the sole survivor you’ll be set free and be given a boatload of cash. To keep things interesting everyone is wearing a tracking device on their leg that will explode in 30 hours if they’re not dead already; it can also be set off by the other contestants.

      Ian’s equal parts dastardly and blood-soakingly brilliant plan is to live stream the fighting and killing over the internet so subscribers from across the globe can log on and witness the carnage. Fittingly, the contestants are from all over the world: Jack Conrad (former professional wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin) and K.C. Mack (Marcus Johnson) are American, and there are also combatants from Ireland (Vinnie Jones, who played Juggernaut in “X-Men: The Last Stand”), Japan (Masa Yamaguchi), Mexico (Manu Bennett) and Russia (Nathan Jones). And in an effort to not forget about half the world’s population, two women (played by Dasi Ruz and Emelia Burns) fight for their lives on the island as well. 

      It’s disconcerting to think that Ian’s goal of 40 million internet viewers (roughly the same as the Super Bowl, which is annually the top-rated show on television) is a realistic possibility. But with the extensive news coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith and the dominance of reality programs on television it’s not inconceivable that such a thing might occur. And this is where “The Condemned” achieves a level of near-greatness: the viewer’s intentions and desires are called into question by a television newswoman (Angie Milliken) who interviews Ian and forces us to look at ourselves and question why this type of programming is so appealing. Do we really get that much satisfaction out of the flaws of others? Does it make us feel that good about ourselves to see other people’s dark sides?

      Admittedly, I’m guilty of this reality craze as well: I think “The Amazing Race” is riveting television, and I don’t miss “Deal or No Deal” even though I know it’s absolutely ridiculous. The purpose of this movie (and this review) is not to be judgmental. The movie’s primary goal is to entertain, which it achieves effectively. But its the second and more subtle point is to get us to think about the programming we watch and why we watch it. The film doesn’t purport to have the answers, but perhaps after seeing it you can figure that out for yourself. 

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