The Tournament

NB – Currently only available on Region 1 DVD and Blu Ray

Directed by: Scott Mann

Starring: Robert Carlisle, Kelly Hu, Ving Rhames, Scott Adkins, Sebastien Foucan, Ian Somerhalder, Liam Cunningham

Synopsis: Every seven years, a deadly tournament is played out in an unsuspecting city. The players are all top assassins, each with a tracking device sewn into their torsos. The survivor wins 10 million dollars, while the rich and powerful follow their progress on rerouted CCTV and hidden cameras placed around town and place high-stakes bets on each encounter. The enigmatic Mr Powers (Cunningham), acts as host, providing background info on the contestants and setting their odds for winning.

The previous winner was Joshua Harlow (Rhames), who has returned to discover who among the other assassins is responsible for the death of his wife four months previously. Other participants include the psychopathic Texan, Miles Slater (Somerhalder), the acrobatic and devious Frenchman Bogart (Foucan), the deadly Russian Yuri Petrov (Scott Adkins) and the alluring but deadly Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu).

This time the Tournament is taking place in Middlesbrough, England, a country with more CCTV cameras per person than anywhere else in the world. The Northeastern town is home to downtrodden, alcoholic priest Father Macavoy (Carlisle). The devious Bogart manages to dig out his tracking device and slip it into Father Macavoy’s coffee, making him an unwitting target...

What seems like a long time ago now, I saw a marketing promo reel for The Tournament over at Twitchfilm.net. The footage showed a lot of incredibly violent action and some of the best shootouts outside of a Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movie. I’ve been wanting to see this film ever since seeing that clip. Action movie fans are going to lap this movie up. What it lacks in originality it makes up for in balls-out-attitude, taking the whole “killer tournament” scenario to the Max.

The opening scenes set everything up, as we witness Joshua Harlow win the previous tournament. It’s clear that even though there is respect and maybe camaraderie between some of the assassins, at the end of the day there can be only one survivor.

Then the action moves to Middlesbrough, a small industrial North-eastern town. We find Father Macavoy coming round after a heavy night of drink. Dishevelled, broke, dog-collar askew, he is a man truly fallen from grace. It’s unclear what has brought him so low – whether the closure of his church is the reason, or if he’s the reason his church is closed.

Whilst Father Macavoy is one of the central characters, he isn’t our way into the Tournament. Instead we follow Lai Lai Zhen‘s arrival at a small hotel. A Suitcase awaits her, containing her favoured weapons and a beaker of liquid bearing the instruction to drink it at 9pm. The drink knocks her unconscious, just in time for the surgeons to arrive and implant the tracking device. It’s a neat little scene which illustrates the mechanics and logistics of running the event.

A nice detail is the comparison between the hand-held trackers each contestant has – in the previous tournament the hand-held device had a primitive black-and-white screen. For the latest Tournament, well, let’s just say there’s an App for that...

Things kick off pretty quickly as Lai Lai gets an unexpected guest. It was refreshing to see Lai Lai use some caution (even if it was for nought), and the ensuing fight was harsh and bloody.

All the central assassins make a great impact. British Scott Adkins finds himself wearing a thick beard and playing a Russian ex-special forces and gets to show off his moves, including a classic three-kick combo. Kelly Hu will be best remembered by action fans as Deathstrike from X2, and the sorceress in The Scorpion King. Here she is the perfect female fighter, using her speed and small surface areas to make quick painful strikes.

Sebastian Foucan not only shows off his Parkour skills but also gets a couple of good gun-fight scenes including one involving a police car which is the sort of craziness John Woo and Chow Yun Fat used to give us. Considering he’s supposed to be one of the lead characters, Robert Carlysle seems a bit lost in his own movie at times. He plays the alcoholic priest well but isn’t very convincing when he’s having to plead for his life (which is almost his natural state in this film). Ian Somerhalder is the weakest character, his Texan nutcase doesn’t really convince although his scene with Ving Rhames’ Joshua Harlow is great.

Ah yes, Ving Rhames. Probably for the first time since Pulp Fiction, Ving is playing a convincingly dangerous person. Fuelled by the desire for revenge and wracked by guilt for not being there when his wife was killed, Joshua uses his experience to good use. His first encounter is with the unfortunate Eddie Cuzak (a nod to John Cusack’s character in Grosse Point Blank, and played by one of the film’s two screenwriters, Nick Roundtree. This is actually one of two references to that film), which ends with an audacious shot to the head which recalls a similar shot in the Dawn of the Dead remake.

The centre-piece of the film is when about nine of the assassins all converge on a pole-dancing club called Angels. With so many people inside it is initially difficult to tell who’s a player and who isn’t, but it doesn’t take long before tables are upturned, strippers are being caught in crossfire and players are shooting at multiple targets. This scene contains two great moments. One is watching a guy leaping through the air, get shot whilst in mid-air, and the force of the bullets throwing him back the way he came. The other is Joshua’s entrance. With all the cool steadiness of James Bond, Joshua takes out two players then, stood in the middle of the room, bullets flying all around him, reloads his .44 magnum. There is no doubt that he is the best. The Tournament pulls out an even bigger scene for it’s climax, as the action moves to what I guess is the A19, and the remaining contestants duke it out with a petrol tanker and a double-decker bus. It’s a truly exciting action scene incorporating loads of different stunts and the odd gag involving a speed camera.

Behind the scenes, things don’t work quite as well. The two technicians who provide a running commentary on the mechanics (shutting down police frequencies, hacking into CCTV footage etc) don’t add a lot to the proceedings except to point out which contestants are about to bump into each other. Another problem is the portrayal of the people betting on the Tournament. They don’t have to do anything but look sad when they lose and be happy when they win. Liam Cunningham on the other hand proves to be a most suitable ringmaster. His facial expressions when reacting to a particularly brutal kill are classic.

Verdict:

Movies based around lethal tournaments are admittedly two-a-penny. Whereas the independent movie Underground managed to stand out from the crowd with it’s innovative approach, The Tournament will stand out for its balls-out action, bloody effects and audacious stunt-work. Robert Carlyle seems a little lost at times, but the other characters, especially Joshua Harlow and Lai Lai Zhen, really make up for it. Scott Mann is a hot talent and must surely figure on any action fan’s list of people to watch out for. I personally hope we don’t have to wait another seven years before he’s orchestrating more carnage...

8 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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