What makes it different from others?

A Masterpiece!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Jack Conrad is "purchased" by a wealthy television producer and taken to a desolate island where he must fight to the death against nine other condemned killers from all corners of the world, with freedom going to the sole survivor. The Condemned is far from being one of WWE's best films but it's definitely not their worst one either. Steve Austin does a pretty good job with what he has and the same goes for Vinnie Jones. The Condemned is action packed and a whole lot of fun and a pretty much entertaining action flick to rent and watch. (7.0/10)

This movie should be condemned. I'm sorry, but it should. Directed by Scott Wiper, the movie tells the story of Jack Conrad (Stone Cold Steve Austin), an American convict waiting in death row. He along with nine other convicts from different countries, are brought to a mysterious island by television producer Ian Brecket (Robert Mammone). In order to fight in a competition where they must kill each other, so that the last man standing will gains his or her freedom. Without spoiling the movie too much, I have to say, the movie isn't that good, when it comes to the action. The action has way too much, shaking cam and quick cuts. I hate how all the close up and long shots are filmed. You really can't make out details. It kinda ruins the movie, because it's really hard to tell, who's winning the fight or not. I wouldn't say that this movie delivers fun action. The action is directionless. It's doesn't know if it wants to be Hard R or not. It's tries to be ugly-looking, by showing bits of hideously cruel beatings, inferred acts of rape, attempted rape and pseudo-sadistic violence, but at the last second, it cuts away. Surprising, for a Lionsgate movie, the movie has little to no gory scenes. It's give the impression that the movie couldn't pay for blood or gory make up, with their limited budget. Its sucks, more, that, the action is very repetitive. Lots of brawling, shooting, and way too many explosions deaths. Another problem with the film is how they misused Steve Austin. Despite having the top billing; 'the Texas Rattlesnake' is barely in the film, much. The movie focus, way too much on the side characters. I came here, to see Austin 3:16, not these boring convicts. Honestly, if you're going to focus on them; at less, make them, a little more interesting. A lot of them are some generic & have little to no backstory. The only person, that seem cool, was Vinnie Jones as Ewan McStarley. It's upsetting, that the movie didn't focus, more on these two men, fighting each other. I would love it. The only thing, I hate about the limited time, they fought, was how upstage, Jack was, compare to Ewan. It's so bad that Ian orders a shotgun to be given to Ewan to "even" things out. The movie makes, Vinnie Jones look kinda weak. The ending fight between them, was disappointing, as hell. No big pay-off to their feud. By far, the worst thing about this movie is the time, spent with Robert Mammone and his crew! All of the scenes with them, are a total waste of my time. I really dislike, how over the top, Robert Mammone's acting was. I really couldn't stand Rick Hoffman as Goldman, Ian Brecket's assistant & Victoria Mussett as Ian's girlfriend, Julie. Their characters were so annoying, due to wishy washy flighty flake attitude. I really don't get, how they were OK, in helping create a death-fight tournament, and then when people start to die, they try really hard to wash their hands clean, by showing their moral disapprove about the killings to Ian. I really hate how preachy, this movie tries to be. The film tries to makes a major point that a program where convicts fight to the death is inhumane and cruel, though the film marketing capitalizes on that exact point, especially with the tagline. It becomes funny when you realize that this was made by two companies who are known for their violence! Distribute company, Lionsgate is known for torture porn movie and the film's production company: World Wrestling Entertainment AKA WWE is known best for its violent and uber extreme Attitude Era. The movie ultimately fails, because of this. By criticizing the violence, it's insulting their fan-base for liking films like this. You can't be preachy, while making money off of portraying violence. It's very hypocritically of them. Honestly, if you want a better film; watch films like 2000's Battle Royale, 2012's The Hunger Games, 1932's The Most Dangerous Game or 1986's Running Man. They're way superior to this film. Even 2008's Death Race is better than this movie! All, I want to see is Stone Cold Steve Austin kick ass in the Condemned; and they didn't give me, that. Overall: This movie is stone cold mediocre. That's the Bottom Line, because I said so!

I saw a trailer for this film, I assume it is a straight to DVD feature, but I was really interested to try it because it sounded like a cool premise. Basically TV producer Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone) is looking for ten of the most dangerous criminals on death row to take part in his new big reality show, "The Condemned". The criminal he most wants for the show, which will be streamed on the internet, is American Jack Conrad (wrestler Steve Austin) who was being held in a Central American prison. The show creators have managed to get these ten criminals, Conrad, British Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones), Japanese Go Saiga (Masa Yamaguchi), Yasantwa Adei (Emelia Burns) from Ghana, Mexican husband Paco Pacheco (Manu Bennett) and wife Rosa (Dasi Ruz), American Kreston Mackie (Marcus Johnson), Estonian Petr Raudsep (Nathan Jones), German Helmut Bruggerman (Andy McPhee) and Italian Dominic Giangrasso (Rai Fazio). The game is simple, the ten prisoners are dropped onto an unknown tropical island with bombs attached to their legs, these will explode if they tamper, go beyond the boundaries or pull a pin. The aim of the game is to be the last one living, the winner will apparently be paid a big cash amount, and be allowed to go free. So they are all dropped, and one by one they die in grizzly ways as each member fights for their life and kills any of the other contestants with weapons provided and cameras watching their every move. One or two of the prisoners agree to team up, and obviously the husband and wife won't be doing anything to each other, but Conrad's only goal is to find a way off the island or get help from the authorities. Breckel also has only one care, to get at least 40,000,000 viewers and subscribers to the website and live streaming, and he doesn't care what the prisoners are doing to get that, whether it be dying, raping or killing. After many kills and only two survivors remaining, it is just the savage McStarley and the less ferocious Conrad remaining to fight to the death. It appears that McStarley is the winner of the game after he shoots Conrad, but he is not dead, and he manages to kill McStarley, and also Breckel and the nasty production team who captured him. Also starring Victoria 'Tory' Mussett as Julie, Madeleine West as Sarah Cavanaugh, Rick Hoffman as 'Goldy' Goldman, Christopher Baker as Eddie C, Samantha 'Sam' Healy as Bella and Luke Pegler as Baxter. Austin makes a good butch anti-villain, and Jones is fantastic as the cocky and sarcastic rapist criminal, it is a film that borrows the premise of Battle Royale, people forced to kill each other with bombs on them, but the criminal element is quite original, and the violence helps too, it is a good fun action thriller. Okay!

The Condemned is an action film that sounds good in the concept but I've noticed one too many similarities to Battle Royale. Ten prisoners on death row are gathered together by some TV producer to participate in the game, on a remote island, with the goal to kill each other within a limited time. To further force the criminals to participate, explosive collars have been placed around their ankles which can be detonated at will. Sound familiar. Battle Royale follows a very similar storyline but with Japanese students instead of criminals. This was likely changed to adult criminals to avoid major controversy in the USA.The Condemned can be a fun action film if you turn your brain off for a while, with some decent fighting scenes but that's about it. The characters are pretty bland save perhaps the Japanese guy and Vinnie Jones when he's funny, and the music was pretty shoddy save Savin' Me by Nickelback. Pardon me for comparing is much to BR but it felt like it was a cheap attempt to remake the film whilst trying to sneak it past the American censors.