Movie | The Tournament | Pass

Yet another retelling of The Most Dangerous Game, this time it's assassins against other assassins in a game held by rich morons. Who will be last? The twists are twofold. First, all of the assassins are implanted with a tracking device that will also blow up after 24 hours are up. The second, a fallen, alcoholic priest (the very cool Robert Carlyle) is given one of the assassin's tracking device (on purpose by the hitman). One of the the other assassins decides to try to keep him out of harm's way.

Good action and a decent cast don't quite outweigh the cheesy production values and sub-par cinematography. This movie just doesn't have the swagger of the The Transporter or the frantic razzle dazzle of Crank, Shoot 'Em Up or Smokin' Aces. In the end, this is the same movie as The Condemned, but set in downtrodden industrial England.

While certainly nothing new (and you can probably come up with other very similar flicks), it's still it's a fun one and worth seeing if you like this genre. The violence is not too bad, with the exception of one scene which had completely unnecessary and revolting violence against an animal. I fast forwarded through that one.

One thumb up.