If you thought that Don Imus should have been fired for insulting the Rutgers women’s basketball team, then heaven knows what would be adequate punishment forexecutive producer Vince McMahon, the World Wrestling Entertainment impresario and disseminator of today’s misogynistic, racist and hideously graphic action-thriller “The Condemned.”
If calling names gets you canned, then what should happen to a greedy hack who markets images of bloodied women as rape receptacles and characters cheapened to their worst ethnic stereotypes in a product of wall-to-wall body blows without a hint of artistic intention?
Put aside the cultural pollution McMahon’s television company perpetuates on a regular basis, turning violence into amusement promoted toward a family demographic. For condemning me to sit through this also terribly acted and ridiculously plotted B-movie about a “Survivor” scenario from hell, I sure wouldn’t mind seeing the dude fry.
As directed and co-written by Scott Wiper, a Hollywood nobody, “The Condemned” appeals to our basest instincts. At the same time, with monstrous hypocrisy, it tries to hide behind a theme of somehow decrying violence in the media. A monologue toward the end of the painful 110 minutes blames us, the viewers, for our bloodlust and tries to absolve the villain producer character Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) — an obvious McMahon substitute — because he’s just giving the people what they want.
Breckel is turning out the first international Internet blockbuster live show by throwing together 10 hardened criminals to be filmed over 30 hours on a deserted island in the South Pacific. They will fight to the death, with only the last man or woman left standing. But since all have been sentenced to death anyway from prisons around the world, the evil showman rationalizes his unflinching game of rape, torture and murder.
The WWE’s imposing “Stone Cold” Steve Austin plays American Jack Conrad, the ostensible hero of the piece. He’s a former military intelligence operative who has been left out to dry by a disloyal Defense Department and now must fight for his life against thugs such as Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones), a sadist with a similar elite background from the British military.
Of course, the story is only an excuse for relentless visuals of pummeling, which is the point, I know. The aggression here can suck you in, no doubt. The audience with which I saw “The Condemned” reacted gleefully during its most obscene moments. So if that’s your thing, well, this is a free society; have at it. But then don’t naively ask “why?” when real violence, like what happened last week at Virginia Tech, occurs.
‘The Condemned’
0/5 stars
Starring: Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones
Director: Scott Wiper
Rated R for pervasive strong brutal violence and for language
