The Condemned

He may be morally bankrupt, but TV producer Breckel (Mammone) knows what the viewing public want: blood.

His latest wheeze is The Condemned: a Death Row death match in which ten doomed convicts are rounded up from the Third World’s most corrupt prisons, dumped on a remote island rigged with cameras and made to fight it out until only one remains.

The winner will be freed. The losers… well, they were going to die anyway, right? And you can see it all live on the internet for only $49.99!

Yes, it’s Battle Royale meets The Running Man as a snarling selection of murderers, rapists and terrorists – male and female - are fitted with explosive ankle bracelets and cast into the jungle for 30 hours of subscriber-only mayhem.

Naturally, Breckel ensures the playing field is far from level, stacking the odds in favour of British lunatic McStarley (Jones, who hasn’t done anything this mean since he last grabbed Gazza’s goolies).

But the most dangerous man is the one nobody really knows. That would be Jack Conrad (Austin), a bullet-headed enigma whose collar size says more about him than his conversation.

“What were you doing in El Salvador?” asks Breckel.
“Working on my tan.”
“Why did you blow up the building?”
“It was blocking my sun.”

As the contestants are beaten up, carved up, trussed up and blown up, up go the ratings. Ironically the paying audience includes the FBI, Jack’s lady and his buddies back home who can only watch on in horror (with a few beers, obviously).

In the end, only the morally upright get out alive. Which isn’t many.

Made under the ‘WWE Films’ banner, this was never going to be a subtle exploration of reality TV, the death penalty, and the relationship between violence and voyeurism.

But the parallels between Breckel and WWE head honcho Vince McMahon – one of the film’s producers - are so obvious, this must be one of the most brazenly self-aware actioners ever made.

Hypocritical or prophetical, it’s certainly not for kids... or feminists.

Slick, brawny and unrelentingly vicious, The Condemned delivers action for the hard-core while having the guts to turn the mirror on itself.

TV. It’ll be the death of us all.

Elliott Noble