The Condemned

Review in a Hurry:  Death-row inmates are coerced into fighting to the death for a live Webcast. Hopefully, nobody is coerced into watching.

The Bigger Picture:  If there were any justice, a print of this film would be shipped, sight unseen, to an inconspicuous island in the South Pacific and forced to fight for its survival against nine other nasty, insulting torture flicks. Not very sporting, perhaps—Battle Royale would dispose of this piece of junk in mere moments—but at least there'd be one copy of this debacle never granted the favor of a viewing.

The Condemned starts with a nearly evergreen premise—the exploitation of life-and-death matters for entertainment purposes—but promptly mangles it beyond all recognition, substituting cynical self-negation for legitimate awareness.

Hideous (and somehow inept and dull) scenes of torture and degradation are countered with grave, eye-rolling admonishments about the role of the viewer in violent art. This means that not only are you, the viewer, watching a terrible movie, but the movie's also trying to make you feel bad about it.

Wrestling personality Stone Cold Steve Austin (and here we use the term "personality" very, very charitably) appears to be unable to string two lines together. The rest of the cast is merely undistinguished, just like the lamentably ordinary action scenes.

A number of pointless subplots stretch the running time out to nearly two hours, during which time The Condemned fails to provide a single good reason for its existence. Here's hoping the box office does the same.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  The Condemned has a few good scenes, most involving Rick Hoffman, memorable as the creepy American in the similarly brutish (but at least entertaining) Hostel.