What makes a good action movie? For me, one of the best action films ever is Die Hard You’ve got a charismatic everyman hero in Bruce Willis as John McClane, a ruthless and calculating villain, a team of dangerous henchmen, high stakes, and great dialogue. Most importantly, Die Hard adds in a level of emotional depth that most action movies lack. McClane not only has to save his wife’s life, but their marriage as well. Plus, you’ve got his budding friendship with a fellow cop still struggling with the effects of a tragic shooting. Oh, and stuff gets blown up, blown up real good. For some, that’s good enough.
To be honest, I’m more than happy to check my brain at the door and enjoy a good, dumb action movie. Just give me bullets, blood, and stuff going boom. I liked Shoot ‘Em Up and the Crank films are probably my favorite guilty pleasures. But, sometimes, an action movie can be too dumb for its own good. That, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to our feature presentation, The Tournament.
Filming on The Tournament originally began in 2007 in the country of Bulgaria, which has become the go-to for direct-to-TV Sci-Fi Channel crap and anybody else with no more than 2 bucks in their pocket. Unfortunately, the production suffered the worst nightmare any low-budget filmmaker could possibly have, it ran out of money. It took so long for them to regain financing that the filmmakers had to re-cast and start from scratch. You kind of want to give director Scott Mann some credit for sticking to his guns (no pun intended). However, after watching the finished product, you also kind of wonder if it was really worth it.
The central concept of The Tournament revolves around a free-for-all death match held every seven years. The contestants are thirty of the world’s top assassins and they compete for a truckload of money. The tournament’s benefactor is a puppet master by the subtle name of Powers (Liam Cunningham). Powers selects a small town for the battlegrounds and has his tech crew hack into the cameras so a clandestine audience of the wealthy and powerful can watch while placing their bets. Cover stories about terror attacks or gas main explosions are prepared to keep the secret of the tournament.
This time around, thirty highly trained assassins converge on the town of Middlesbrough, Great Britain. Among the competitors is Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu), who is haunted by her last job and wants the cash as a way out. She also speaks with some weird accent. I honestly have no clue what Kelly Hu was going for, but at least she still looks hot. I guess that’s what really matters.
The odds on favorite this year is Joshua Harlow (Ving Rhames), the winner of the last tournament. His wife was recently murdered and he re-enters the contest to search for her killer. Harlow is a real badass. How do I know he’s badass? Because he wears a black trenchcoat and walks in slow motion. Sebastian Foucan, who many might remember as the bomb maker from Casino Royale plays Anton Bogart, a master of Parkour. Ian Somerhalder, formerly of Lost, plays Miles Slade, a psychopathic Texan. No one is safe from Slade not even stray dogs or topless dancers. Filling out the roster are an assortment of murderers who utilize everything from martial arts to sniper rifles and even bazookas.
The holders of the tournament keep track of their quarries by implanting them with a sensor that works on body heat. The assassins are all given tracking devices to let them know when an opponent is nearby. A wrench is thrown into the works when Bogart removes his implant and drops it into a pot of coffee. It’s promptly swallowed by the alcoholic Father MacAvoy (Robert Carlyle), a priest who has lost his faith in God. Poor MacAvoy is forced to compete in the tournament and handed down an edict, not from the Holy Father, but from Powers who says, "Kill or be killed." To put a cherry on top of all that, the sensors are armed with an explosive. If no one wins the tournament within 24 hours, then all remaining sensors will detonate.
What happens next is basically a rip-off of The Condemned, which itself was just a rip-off of Battle Royale and The Running Man. The hitmen try to take one another out, innocent bystanders die in the crossfire, and all for the entertainment of the rich and powerful. Some of the action sequences are decent including the Parkour stuff with Foucan.
However, what I cannot overlook is the sheer number of plot holes that any screenwriter with two brain cells could have closed up with ease. The sensors that work on body heat inexplicably switch off whenever someone is killed, despite the fact that the body stays warm for a while after death. If it’s so easy to cut out your tracker, why doesn’t everybody else do it? Also, it seems the trackers only work when it’s convenient for the director.
The Tournament is filled with all sorts of silliness. The story doesn’t make a lick of sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds. The characters have absolutely no emotional depth or any other traits that might distinguish them from every other generic action movie stereotype. Compared to other direct-to-video films, The Tournament still ranks above whatever Steven Seagal tries to peddle these days, but leaves much to be desired.
Rating: *
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