I rented this movie because I was sick, and figured it was a mindless waste of time and it would keep me occupied without too much mental or emotional stress. I was right. But right when I was asking myself what type of people out there gave this kind of movie an audience ( I am often in existential crisis ) the script slapped me with surprise. It actually gave a very clear message that you're basically a jerk for liking to entertain yourself with gratuitous violence. Then it also killed off all the people in the film who cashed in and laughed at death , showed them what violence really was , well, sort of. I mean essentially the movie is making money off of violence and death and really awful things in real life. Movies and entertainment like this are sort of anesthesisizing the public to hardcore reality. But it knew that, and it made that concept and those people the truly bad ones .. which was an interesting shift in perspective although I can't give it too much credit because essentially it's still cashing in on the same genre .. While I was watching this though I realized that all the people I hate , and that I spend way too much time wondering how they exist in the world , how they don't care about anything of value or have any kind of morality or concept of the abstract and emotional depth, people that sit around and watch movies and cheer for the hero, and yet live like villains. People that have no idea that they are the villains in real life. That they lie, they hurt people, they cheat people. They burn people. They kill people. They rape or molest people. Whatever .. these people ,how do they exist? And not know what they are? How they can be so blind to themselves when there is so much information out there ?? I decided these types of people much watch these mindless movies . So on that level it comforted me. That all those gung ho violent types watching this movie, at the end, the jokes on them. And whoops, maybe it will make them question something more than they are used to. Baby steps Hollywood , baby steps, and I'm all about it. This movie had a conscious. That's amazing for the type of movie it was. It might be too smart though for all the people who need to actually get that message .. but nice try anyways. The script had me laughing out loud too. In a few parts. In a good way. I think this type of movie for what it was was excellent. Probably the one movie like this you could let your teens watch. Because of the message at the end. Which was - violence and the people who cash in on it, the people who use it as entertainment are evil, stupid and deserve to die. Haha.

Started to watch this movie as the initial few minutes seemed to be very promising. As the movie proceeded, it was clear it is purely violence porn and belonged to a very particular audience who will unapologetically appreciate violence porn. I would have given this movie much less thought and relegated it to the exploitative genre, a guilty pleasure watch if it had not gone on to pretend like it has a conscience and integrity. At one point point this movie even throws a preach speech as if it cares that what a social decay this genre is, and it comes across as so hypocritical that it's comical. There is no excuse for this bad movie.

Ian Breckel is producing an internet show that takes prisoners from around the world and make them fight to the death. Jack Conrad (Steve Austin), Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones) and the rest of the fighters are dropped off on a deserted island. They are fitted with explosive ankle devices. The last one to survive gets his freedom.Robert Mammone is a weak choice for a villain. Rick Hoffman would have been much better. At least, he would have had fun with the role. It takes almost 15 minutes to get to Steve Austin. That's not right. The movie needs to be about him. This is a WWE production and it's an excuse for these fighters to get in some hand-to-hand action. It's fun on that level but nothing else.

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.