Place Your
Ad Here!

THIS WEEK AT THE MOVIES

 

The Condemned

Cast:
Sanaa Lathan, Simon Baker, Blair Underwood, Alfre Woodard, Mike Epps

Attacking the intended audience is one of those things that a filmmaker just doesn't do. World Wrestling Entertainment has made a lot of money over the years producing all sorts of inferior entertainment, including a number of bad films starring their top wrestlers. Never before, however, have they gone so far as to attack everything they themselves stand for and what their fans love. As Robert De Niro said in “The Score”, “You don't shit where you eat.”

True, this particular thing has been done before, most notably in 'Daniel Minahans Series 7” back in 2001, and more recently almost for real in Perry Grebin and Michael Nigro 's “American Cannibal.” Still, however reprehensible the whole thing is, going around saying it over and over again doesn't help the case much.

Ian Breckel(Robert Mammone) is an evil TV producer, who's come up with a brilliant idea: He's going to have a dozen or so hardened criminals who have been sentenced to death in various countries duke it out and the last one still alive gets to go free. Sounds like something the WWE would do if could get away with it, right?

So they get a bunch of stereotypes(Masa Yamaguchi, Emelia Burns, Manu Bennett, Nathan Jones, and a couple of others), plus McStarley (Vinnie Jones), the official villain [thay always have to be British, y'know], and the official hero Jack Conrad(Steve Austin), who is as guilty as the rest, but was only doing it to fight bad guys.

There follows the usual gratuitous violence, with commentary by Ian and his minions behind the scenes(Victoria Mussett, Rick Hoffman, Luke Pegler abd some others), some of whom feel sorry for these “innocent” people getting hurt and want this to stop. These people also attack the millions of viewers who subscribe to the pay per view webcast of this travesty. YOU DON”T SHIT WHERE YOU EAT.

While the gratuitous explosions and such are fun, the social commentary ruins it. I wish it could have been nastier and have less of a conscience. But what can you do? For fans only.

Eric Lurio