“The Condemned”

1735400

Talk about identifying with what’s up there on the screen. The entire time I was watching "The Condemned," I felt as though the title applied to me.

Not that plenty of folks won’t have a bang-up time witnessing "The Condemned’s" floods of blood, barrages of bullets, multiple bone-crunchings — and the great balls of fire that come from stuff (and people) blowin’ up real good.

If the filmmakers had simply left it at that, "The Condemned" wouldn’t have been a good movie. But it certainly would have been better.

Alas, "The Condemned" isn’t content being a bombastic, bone-headed action workout.

No, this production — brought to you in part by World Wrestling Entertainment — tries to convince us that it’s shameful and immoral to profit from violence. Would the WWE even exist if its denizens didn’t believe in making money for people who beat each other up, from people who like to watch?

Can you say "hypocrisy," boys and girls?

Even without the misguided moralizing, "The Condemned" doesn’t exactly overwhelm you with rock-’em, sock-’em expertise.

The movie borrows its premise from the 2000 Japanese reality-show satire "Battle Royale," in which armed teens, imprisoned on an island, are ordered to kill each other. There’s also more than a bit of "The Running Man," the 1987 workout about a wrongly convicted cop (played by the Governator himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger) trying to survive a futuristic game show’s execution gauntlet.

But TV no longer interests ratings-hungry producer Ian Breckel (an appropriately sniveling Robert Mammone), who’s eager to attract audiences broadcasters can’t deliver in a multimedia world.

So he takes his act to the Internet, creating a Web site where users can pony up to see live streaming action, direct from a deserted South Pacific island, featuring an international lineup of 10 death row inmates battling for survival.

The last man — or woman — standing wins his (or her) freedom, while Breckel cashes in on a Super Bowl-sized global audience rooting for their favorites among a Mousketeer roll call of murderers, rapists, torturers and other assorted scumbags.

All except one hulking American, that is: quiet-but-deadly Jack Conrad (Steve Austin, the wrestler formerly known as "Stone Cold"), whose innate sense of fair play seems out of place in this kill-or-be-killed pageant. Especially when facing off against raging maniac Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones), a British special forces veteran who’s as mouthy and bigoted as Conrad is soft-spoken and valiant.

Meanwhile, back in the control room, Breckel revels in more and more gore — as his girlfriend (Tory Mussett) and director pal (Rick Hoffman) grow more and more horrified by his lust for blood. And money.

Director Scott Wiper ("A Better Way to Die"), who co-wrote the screenplay with TV veteran Rob Hedden, misses myriad chances to create claustrophobic tension by cutting away from "The Condemned’s" island to the States, throwing in a needless subplot involving federal investigators and — surprise! — government deception. And let’s not forget Conrad’s winsome girlfriend back home in Texas (Madeleine West), a single mom and waitress who heads down to the local bar to catch her man in action.

The action, of course, is the sole reason for "The Condemned’s" existence, and even that isn’t up to (pardon the pun) snuff. Director Wiper overdoes the hand-held camera stylings to the point where it’s often difficult to tell who’s doing what to whom.

Not that it matters; most of the characters are interchangeable, so why shouldn’t their inevitably gruesome demises be the same way?

As a leading man, chrome-domed Austin displays the requisite bulk to handle the movie’s mucho macho butt-kicking. But he lacks the forceful personality and deadpan flair that have made Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson a standout among the current crop of movie musclemen.

That leaves the field, such as it is, to Jones, a former soccer tough who’s enlivened everything from "EuroTrip" to "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" with his gleefully crazed presence. There’s not much to laugh about in "The Condemned," but Jones’ grinning sicko manages to stand out in thoroughly undistinguished company.

He’s the movie’s most violent character by far — and he’s one of the few who’s occasionally fun to watch. Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that this movie is guilty of celebrating the gratuitous violence it self-righteously pretends to condemn.