Presents

The Condemned

Alright, I have to come clean right up front, I was a big fan of wrestling in the 90s when Stone Cold Steve Austin was the top guy in the industry.  I don't know why, maybe it was that he was from Texas and I have family there, or maybe it was his 'fuck the boss' attitude that I identified with (at the time my boss was such a big asshole that if they gave the world an enema, they would have stuck the hose into him!), but, in any case, I was a huge mark for Austin, so I guess I was sort of predisposed to liking The Condemned.

  In his film debut, Austin basically plays himself (a bad good guy), as Jack Conrad, Steve is a prisoner in South America when a rich mogul pulls him off of death row to take part in an online reality show.  The show pits 10 death row inmates from around the world against each other in a battle to the death...sort of the Battle Royale for grown up convicts.  Well, when we gather the 10 on an undisclosed island the fighting begins, they have 30 hours and there can be only one survivor, and, with explosive strapped to their legs, there's no way off except through the others!

This is a pretty good action movie, here's the problem I had with it.  There's a whole sub-plot that discloses to us that Austin isn't really a bad guy, just a really tough good guy, and there's another side story (that seems tacked on) about an FBI agent who shames the Pentagon into sending a rescue team to the island to rescue Austin, then there's another sub-plot about Austin's girlfriend and his hometown gathering and rooting for him...even when he's on camera killing people, I don't know about you guys out there, but my wife likes the fact that I'm big enough to protect her, but I'm not sure that there'd be a warm welcome home after I was on TV knifing someone to death!  And there's the fact that these little side stories seem added in to give Austin's character a little more depth and warmth.  Listen up WWE, we like Stone Cold Steve Austin, we don't need him to be more human or have a girlfriend or even know that he's 'not all bad', just put him in there and let him do what he does best...kick ass!

Now, don't think I'm one of those guys who believes everything he sees, I understand that wrestling is scripted and that it's 'not real', but I also know that these guys are tremendous athletes and I have nothing but respect for them...in fact, I ran into Austin at a party store when he was the top guy in the industry and, I have to tell you, I wouldn't want to mess with him, he's one big, bad, mean looking dude!  Overall, I'm giving The Condemned three out of four cigars, , if you're looking for a violent popcorn movie, then this is for you, it's not the best one I've ever seen, but it's really not the worst either.  I would have enjoyed it more, if the camera were a little less 'shaky' during the fight scenes, if it hadn't seemed so important to the writers to 'humanize' Austin's character and if there wasn't such a ham-fisted attempt to teach me that reality TV is wrong and will ultimately make me a worse person...for some reason, I'm still not sure of, I just know that it's supposed to be bad for me.  So, until next time, when I'll be giving the 'Bad Movie Guy Stunner' to another movie, remember that the best movies are bad movies.