The Condemned

Note to Vince MacMahon. Stick to wrestling. This movie, produced by the WWE's film department (which should be dismantled...seriously), is a cheap "Running Man" rip-off. There is no logical reason for this movie, other that to watch "Stone Cold" Steve Austin beat up people.

The basic premise is this rich evil guy sets up an illegal web-distributed show in which condemned criminals are put on an island and have 30 hours to kill each other off. To insure they all in fact decide to kill each other and not escape, there is this explosive device strapped to their ankles that will detonate in 30 hours.

Now forget the fact that the movie never clearly explains how he managed to convince the prison wardens of multiple different prisons to just turn over convicted murders. It's just explained away with the blanket "corruption" statement and left at that. Forget the fact that people are watching this in public bars, and apparently nobody except the bad guy's girlfriend had a problem with this. Forget any remblance of reality.

For those of you that remember the sci-fi classic, The Running Man, the movie set up the entire scenario. The entire world had gone to pot, and the government sponsored the television show in which state-sponsored executioners hunted down convinced killers on the set. The movie was a social commentary, and set up the story well.

In The Condemned, there is no clear set-up. It's all just a contrived excuse to put people on an island and let them kill each other.

Wrestler turned wannabe actor Steve Austin is one of the condemned. Of course, Austin isn't a real bad guy. He's some super ex-military trained fighter who was undercover or something like that. It's never really clear how he ended up in prison. Nothing in this movie is clear. It's like trying to follow the storyline from Monday Night Raw...oh yeah...right, this is a WWE production.

Anyway, there are a few lame attempts at building sympathy for a couple of the characters. There is a husband/wife (or boyfriend/girlfriend...not sure) team that apparently were both convinced of murder but somehow are suppose to be the stereotypical sympathetic couple. She gets raped (of course. I guess no other reason to put the female character on the island except to have her raped.) He gets killed. And Austin swears revenge.

Don't waste your money. Don't even bother renting this when it comes on video.