You're familiar with "The Most Dangerous Game," that old short story about a rich man who hunts humans for sport. There are
tasteful ways you could update it for the modern era; "Series 7," a dark and funny satire from 2001, does just that. "The Condemned" makes no attempt to be tasteful, or even clever. It goes the brutal route instead: Put 10 death-row convicts on an island, make them kill each other until only one is left, and make us watch every bloody minute. Produced by WWE Films as a vehicle for Stone Cold Steve Austin, this is hack work at its lowest, directed and co-written by one Scott Wiper (tee-hee), his second feature and the first one not sent straight to video. I admit, though, that Austin himself is a droll, even intelligent figure. His deadpan delivery of some "up yours"-style lines early in the film is right on. He seems like he's probably a friendly galoot in real life. I never thought I'd say a professional wrestler was "above" this kind of trash, but Austin is. The modern twist (which was already mined by the aforementioned "Series 7") is that the unwilling participants in the game, gathered from various Third World prisons, are going to have their actions broadcast live over the Internet for everyone to see. No TV network would show something this brutal, but the Internet is the Wild West. You can make a fortune showing snuff films on the Web!
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