The Condemned

Ten convicted murderers are dumped on a deserted island and forced to fight to the death. It’s basically Big Brother, if Davina McCall had access to landmines. Welcome to The Condemned.

The unlucky contestants have been abducted from prisons around the globe by shady millionaire Breckel (Robert Mammone), who plans to make a fortune by livestreaming the carnage to paying customers on the internet. Because nothing says “mid‑2000s cinema” like moral panic about broadband.

Among the human meat for the grinder are the mysterious Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) and ex‑SAS hard man McStarley (Vinnie Jones). They’re informed that they have 30 hours to kill everyone else on the island. The last man standing wins his freedom. Anyone who refuses gets instantly detonated via a bomb strapped to their ankle, which is a neat bit of incentive-based management.

This was nowhere near as bad as I feared, although it still manages to fail on several levels. There’s plenty of gritty hand‑to‑hand action, but much of it is shot with hyperactive camerawork and awkward angles that make it difficult to tell who’s punching whom, or indeed whether anyone is punching at all.

Plot-wise, The Condemned wears its influences proudly, nicking liberally from Battle Royale and The Running Man. Like those films, it attempts some commentary on society’s appetite for violence. Unfortunately, this point is somewhat undermined by a scene - soundtracked by The Prodigy’s Firestarter - in which Vinnie Jones mows down a room full of unarmed people with a machine gun. Subtle, this is not.

The film’s moral hand‑wringing is also wildly unconvincing. It hinges on members of the production crew developing a crisis of conscience about the show. This is hard to swallow, given that they all voluntarily signed up to work on a programme whose central premise is “ten murderers try to kill each other on camera”. Feels like something you’d want to think through at the interview stage.

Anyway, on to the climax - and the reason we’re all really here.

As the authorities close in, Breckel attempts to flee by helicopter. Conrad gives chase and opens fire on the chopper with twin machine guns, blazing away heroically and achieving absolutely nothing. He runs out of ammo, and it briefly looks like Breckel might escape.

But then one of Breckel’s staff members—oddly horrified by all the murder she’s been facilitating -appears beside Conrad. She hands him one of the explosive anklets. Conrad primes it, hurls it into the helicopter, and… kaboom.

Artistic merit

It’s always deeply satisfying to see a villain receive his comeuppance via an exploding helicopter, and The Condemned delivers the goods. The blast doesn’t instantly obliterate the chopper; instead it sets it on fire, causes it to pitch forward, smash into a cliff face, explode again, and then tumble spectacularly down a rocky outcrop.

I couldn’t spot any obvious model work or dodgy CGI, so full marks to director Scott Wiper for staging a properly meaty aerial demise.

Exploding helicopter innovation

First known helicopter destroyed using an exploding ankle bomb.

Positives

Vinnie Jones. He really can’t act, but here it somehow works in a glorious “so bad it’s good” way. Possibly this is because most of his scenes are shared with a mute Chinese bloke and the hulking, bullet‑headed non‑actor that is Steve Austin, meaning there’s no danger of him being shown up.

Negatives

Steve Austin demonstrates pitching accuracy that would put the New York Yankees to shame, perfectly lobbing an exploding anklet into a helicopter from at least 50 yards away. Unerringly accurate. Maybe that’s what they teach in wrestling school.

Favourite quote

“Sounds like you had a hard life. Good thing it’s over.”

Interesting fact

Vinnie Jones was originally the lead in this film with Austin in his role. However, after World Wrestling Entertainment got involved in the production of the casting was switched with Austin taking the star role.