(Long Island, NY) I love action movies. Movies that make no pretense of being high art- just good, old-fashioned blood, death, and violence. This magical genre saw its heyday in the late 80’s through to the early 90’s. Theatergoers of that era could, for the mere price of a movie ticket, watch in pure childlike wonderment as stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Segal, and Jean-Claude Van Damme played invincible killing machines, sending millions of deserving villains to visceral, brutal deaths. Sadly, however, our heroes have aged and their time has past. Some have moved on to entirely new endeavors, while others cling to their glory days and eke out a sad existence in the direct-to-video market.
However, the action movie genre has not died out, but merely changed- and not for the better. There’s a new generation of actors ready to inherit the action star mantle from Arnold and company, but so far none of these pretenders have even proven worthy of getting their butts kicked by them, let alone being their replacements. That, coupled with our current era of sensitivity and political correctness, has produced action movies where the hero won’t kill people unless it’s in self-defense. They don’t have huge, oiled muscles. They get sad and want to talk about their feelings. They will even spare a defeated opponent instead of decapitating them and playing soccer with the head! What kind of sick garbage is this?!?
So far, the wannabes have come and gone: The Rock? Pathetic. Vin Diesel? He had something going for a little while, but can never be taken seriously again after the instant career death that was XXX. Marky Mark Wahlberg? He has potential, but the lad still has a long way to go. And now a new contender (and the subject of today’s review) enters the arena- “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, star of The Condemned.
Steve Austin (real name Steven Williams) should be well-known enough to all- although this is his first major starring role in a motion picture, he had competed for years on the pro wrestling circuit and (aside from Hulk Hogan) was the biggest name in the history of the sport. World Wrestling Entertainment, Austin’s employer, recently decided to start producing terrible movies to serve as starring vehicles for their wrestlers. The first two unholy results of this plan aren’t even worth mentioning here, but since I’m reviewing The Condemned, I guess I have to mention it, right? Okay. But relax- this movie doesn’t produce quite as much nausea as WWE Films’ first two efforts.
The movie started out promising enough. Realizing that modern action movies are all pretty rotten and that Hollywood’s creativity is completely bankrupt, the makers of The Condemned decided to simply rip-off a plot device from a successful action movie of a bygone era- namely, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s classic, The Running Man. Hey, if you’re going to steal, why not steal from one of the better entries of the genre? Anyway, the plot is summed up fairly easily- an evil, wealthy tycoon named Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) gathers 10 death-row inmates from all over the world to fight to the death on an isolated island, live over streaming subscriber webcams. Last one standing gets set free, presumably to resume the antisocial activities that landed them in jail to begin with. One such contestant is Jack Conrad, played by ole’ Stone Cold himself. He’s tough, surly, has a bad attitude and a plentiful supply of one-liners. Another contestant of note is Ewan McStarley (played by Englishman Vinnie Jones), an evil, sadistic madman and obvious foil to Austin’s character. The remaining inmates are an eclectic bunch, both male and female, and all vying for the chance to kill their opponents and go free (presumably to…well, kill yet again).
The stage is set- the players in the game are deposited in random locations on the island by helicopter and are given 30 hours to win the game. In another page ripped out of The Running Man’s book, each inmate has a bomb strapped to their ankle. If there isn’t a winner after 30 hours, boom. If you tamper with it, boom. However, the bombs can be used offensively, as well- each of the explosive devices has a grenade-like pin that, when pulled, really ruins the wearer’s day. This element adds an interesting twist to the numerous conflicts.
So, like I said above, things started off on the right foot. 10 socially irredeemable characters, forced to fight to the death. The battles were sufficiently harsh and hard-hitting and the pace of the movie just whisked along. But then the problems started creeping in. The first one that reared its ugly head was something I like to call the “shaky-cam.” Whenever any of the characters fought each other, the camera started shaking like the operator was being shocked with a double-strength cattle prod while having a major epileptic fit. It honestly gave me a headache and made it impossible to tell what was going on whenever anyone got into a brawl.
Then, problem number two popped up, and this one was the deal-breaker for me- Stone Cold attacks one of his opponents, has the guy at a disadvantage, and then…lets him go?!? I couldn’t believe it, he actually let him go! If this was an Arnold movie, he not only would have killed the guy, but everyone else on the island, the people running the contest, and anyone living on the surrounding islands just for good measure. But Steve Austin, one of our new breed of “nice” action heroes, lets the guy live. And to make matters worse, Austin runs into the same guy later that evening, weeping and huddled up helplessly against a log. Does Stone Cold make up for his earlier folly and dismember the crybaby? Of course not, he instead gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and asks him if he wants to discuss what’s wrong. I’m surprised he didn’t start making out with him while he was at it. I mean, the movie’s going at 60 miles an hour and suddenly just hits a brick wall. They later reveal the reason why Austin isn’t mindlessly hacking up everyone in sight, but it’s an annoying cop-out. His character was presented as morally ambiguous at first and this revelation ruined whatever unpredictability he had possessed up until that point.
Meanwhile, back home, Steve’s estranged girlfriend Sarah (Madeleine West), who was unaware that he had been sitting in an El Salvadorian prison for the past year, catches wind of the contest and is shocked to discover that her missing beau is involved. This leads to a ridiculous scene later in the film when Steve manages to get to a phone and calls her. Instead of expressing any concern over how he is involved in a televised life-or-death struggle with homicidal maniacs or that he has high-explosives strapped to his body, Sarah instead decides that she wants to go right into a tearful, heart-to-heart discussion about their relationship. My friend and I got so confused by this scene that we thought for a minute that Steve had called one of his other girlfriends or something.
So the pace slows a great deal, one-by-one the contestants are killed off, leaving the sole survivor to seek retribution against the diabolical orchestrators of the event. The movie is nothing if not predictable.
As a film judged on its own merits, The Condemned is okay. However, as an attempt to recapture the glory of the pure 80’s action flick and establish Stone Cold Steve Austin as a legitimate action star, The Condemned is a total failure. It’s lacking personality, humor, pacing, plot, and, most importantly, a protagonist that just kills and kills and kills without any thought or remorse. In 1985’s cinematic masterpiece Commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger assaulted an island and slaughtered an entire army single-handedly- Stone Cold, I think, kills 2 or 3 people, tops. And guys he killed didn’t even have the benefit of military training! Steve Austin wouldn’t last 10 seconds in Arnold’s world. Who would? When we find that out, we’ll finally have our new action star.
