Movie Review: The Tournament

DVD Release Company: Dimension Home Entertainment (http://www.weinsteinco.com)
Language: English
Length: 95 Minutes
Image: Color
Year: 2009
Rated: R (Strong Bloody Violence, Language and Some Nudity)
Release Date: October 20, 2009

"Do you watch television father? The whole world is insane!" - Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu)

If any of you action buffs need more hair on your chests or would like an unforeseen expectation to all of a sudden kick someone in the teeth, then this movie is probably for you. The Tournament is all those cliche movie quotes into one: high-octane, adrenaline pumping, heart stopping, edge of your seat, etc. That is also its slight of a downfall as it delivers only action and nothing else. The good news here is is that the action is over the top and bloody. A fine tuned guts or glory scenario that packs a punch in the gore department.

Every seven years, a tournament is unleashed into the unexpected streets of a randomly picked city. As the media is handed either terrorist or a random act of violence explanation, the real reason is that 30 of the deadliest assassins have come together for a last man standing, cash prize, kill or be killed tournament held by a sadistic Mr. Powers. All the action is captured on close circuit cameras where wealthy gamblers pick their favorite horses to come out standing.

As usual, I'm going to began with the good aspects of the film. I think its important to build a healthy base to set up the more disliked portions. The Tournament offers up exploding heads, bodies, appendages...almost everything explodes, even the kitchen sink. Only a few films come to mind when it comes to non-stop action and the "strong bloody violence" is at play - does Punisher: War Zone come to mind? Of course, some of these scenes of extreme violence are highly exaggerated for the sake of shock value. You really can't separate a hand from its arm thirty feet away with a shotgun, cleanly at that; but that is the fun of it all because where else would you see something like that that extravagant. Also, the gore effects were surprisingly well done for an under the radar action film. The use of props to enhance the explosions, to deem it more gruesome, were used to generate a full fledged shock to its audience. There were no CGI used here as the bits and pieces flew over the rest of the cast of characters.

Lets touch on this wonderful mix of cast. Kelly Hu, who you might remember for the second X-Men movie as Deathstrike, plays Lai Lai Zhen. A woman assassin bent on guilt of her last assign must win the tournament or accept her fate. I think I know now why she didn't say much (actually, I don't remember her saying anything) in X-2 for she is a bit bland and her broken English, acted broken English at that, comes off like Jackie Chan but in higher pitched. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that she is fine to look at and is a fierce competitor as she uses her martial arts background effectively for the film. Then, you have the powerhouse Ving Rhames. A man I will always admire for his roles in Pulp Fiction and the remake of Dawn of the Dead. His character is on a mission of revenge, seeking the tournament player who offed his wife. He doesn't really make a believable assassin to be honest. Rhames is a huge guy, a bit slow especially with these younger, more athletic hit men; however, he manages to pull of his role of last year tournament winner Joshua Harlow. Then, we come to my favorite actor of the film - Robert Carlyle. Carlyle plays father MacAvoy who accidentally wonders into the brutal game. Though my favorite actor, he didn't shine as well as hoped. He dribbled a long like a snot nose kid not wanting to window shopping with mother. His character might be more at fault here because there was no room for expansion and the character was limited to only so much involved. I want to touch on the character Miles Shades, played by the Ashton Kutcher lookalike Ian Somerhalder. Shades is a sadistic Texan who will kill anyone or anything just for the sheer orgasm of it. He has the highest body count, a combination more towering than all the assassins held together. Yet, there is a flaw with this character which comes down to being a stereotypical, ride'em cowboy Texan. Can't an "twangish" accent be enough? Does he have to do all the verbal quips and even dress like the Electric Horseman? It just seemed a bit corny for my taste.

There are dual plots at work here. You have the Lai Lai Zhen helping and protecting father MacAvoy becoming a dead man from the fronts of various hit men. A feasible and probably the most captivating plot line for the sake of having an innocent civilian, ironically a man of the cloth, becoming mixed in a bloodbath with assassins surrounding. Then, you have the more simple plot of revenge. Joshua Harlow commits himself to avenge the death of his pregnant wife. We follow his wanderings as he comes closer and closer to the person responsible for his wife's demise. Both plots eventually entangle, mixing faith with revenge, sacrifice with savior and with doing the right thing with doing what you think is a self centered best. As much as I want to avoid the more simple plot, I can't. It brings in more motivation for the first plot line and it also becomes a filler for more interesting scenes because the MacAvoy plot line is more dramatic whereas the Harlow's is more action packed.

And, now, for the what I dread to write but it must be done, the worst of the film. I'm going to start off with what I've sort of touched on earlier. There is too much standalone action in this film. I feel that there needs to be a mixture of comedy and drama. I mentioned before that the father MacAvoy scenes were more dramatic than Harlow's; however, the drama there didn't jump out into your face. It meandered there and wasn't well played out due to there always being a hit man trying to kill either MacAvoy or Zhen. There were attempts at the comedy element as well, but they fell so short of being funny that I cringed at their stale and poignant timeliness and delivery. There was one scene that is well worth mentioning for being the only scene that had effective comedy. When MacAvoy needs to pass through the tracking devise he digested, he sits in a stall and in the adjacent stall is Zhen. He comments on how it is much like confession while he is trying to relieve himself. That is an effectively driven comedic scene in an action movie which was something I wanted to see more of it this type of film.

There were some technical flaws I had with the film. For instance, there are close circuit cameras in the most pointless positions which would be useless to any security measure. Who has a camera that points from the ceiling and directly downward to the floor? Also, how did a close circuit camera become about in MacAvoy's church and at such a low angle? Basically, the film makers became lazy and just doubled up on their filming camera and used it as the closed circuit ones too. However in the third act, the majority of the scene is in another church yet there is no camera in there. I had been confused the entire time of where cameras were located and why they were located in certain locations. Also, Joshua Harlow loses an index finger to Miles Shades on his right hand during Harlow's capture, yet is still able to use a shotgun and do other various activities which revealed that he still had an index finger. Oops!

Lastly, I want to point out Liam Cunnigham as he plays Powers; the man behind the scenes of the tournament. Cunningham's delivery of The Tournament is overly nauseating as he speaks like a trailer announcer with a deep toned voice and exaggeratedly emphasizes on the key elements. I blame Cunningham for there could have been a better delivery. It just seemed to gimmicky and trailer dramatic when it didn't need to be.

The overall ranking of The Tournament is moderately high. It is an entertaining film that has some good qualities about it. For what keeps it from being any higher is because of the camera and severed finger mistakes plus the hardly any comedy or dramatic values much needed to be an effective action thriller. The action will blow you away, the gore will most definitely shock you and the gunfight scenes are nothing new but they do have a certain appeal to them in a suave sort of way.

DVD REVIEW

The overall DVD review ranking is beyond low. There are no extras. The cover art is generic. I'm disappointed and curious to why there are no extras with a film like this. You have three big name actors and yet, there is no interviews or featurettes. I would have expected some deleted scenes as well, but nope, nothing.