The Condemned is Pure Escapism
Disguised as a Feature Film, This Video Game is All Brain Candy
Professional wrestler Steve Austin finds himself a reluctant participant in the deadliest of reality shows. Vinnie Jones provides some comic relief as a sadistic villain
During the movie “Stand by Me,” a character named Vern, played by actor Jerry O’Connell, wonders what would happen if Mighty Mouse and Superman had a fight. His buddy Teddy (Corey Feldman) simply rolls his eyes and says that a fight like that would be impossible because Mighty Mouse is a cartoon and Superman is “like a real guy.”
The same comparison applies to “The Condemned,” a video game disguised as a feature film in which a real guy (“Stone Cold” Steve Austin) matches wits with a cartoonish villain (Vinnie Jones) with predicatble results.
Austin plays Jack Conrad, a U.S. citizen who’s currently sitting on death row in Central America for murdering several citizens. Conrad gets a new lease on life when television executive Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) gets the prison officials to release Conrad into his custody.
Breckel has developed a brand-new reality series designed for video game players and Internet junkies. In addition to Conrad, he acquires nine other condemned prisoners from around the world and places them on an island outfitted with more than 400 cameras. Each prisoner has 30 hours to make sure that the other 9 contestants die in order to win their freedom. Only the last contestant standing will be allowed to walk away.
With the help of his technical wizard Goldman (Rick Hoffman), Breckel makes the live video feed of this competition available over the Internet for $49.99. To make things even more interesting, each contestant wears an ankle bracelet containing 20 ounces of plastic explosive that can be detonated in one of three ways, including an easily accessible pull tab.
Conrad has no intention of harming the other contestants and even goes out of his way to aid an injured player, but the sadistic Ewan McStarley (Jones) takes such delight in torturing and killing the other prisoners that Conrad has no choice but to try and stop him permanently.
A film that borrows the best elements of “The Running Man” and “Escape from New York,” “The Condemned” is 100 minutes of pure brain candy. Watching this film is like eating an entire meal consisting of nothing but pie, cake and ice cream washed down with a gallon of chocolate milk.
Professional wrestler Steve Austin is perfectly cast as Jack Conrad, a stoic character who definitely is more than he appears to be. Vinnie Jones also proves himself a perfect match for Austin as the psychotic prisoner who actually enjoys playing this game.
Director Scott Wiper overlooks some serious continuity problems, especially in the scenes where Jack Conrad manages to make a satellite phone call to his estranged girlfriend back in the United States. Though she paid for access to the streaming video from the island in a previous scene, when Conrad gets her on the phone, she acts as if she knows nothing about the game. Conrad also wastes precious time talking about their relationship when he should be giving her directions to the island.
Wiper also throws in a bit of social commentary, but these lessons are so heavy-handed that it’s hard to tell if Wiper is serious or just going for more laughs.
“The Condemned” is pure escapist fun and, to answer Vern’s question, it's always best to bet on the real guy to win.
“The Condemned” is rated R for pervasive strong brutal violence and for language.
