The story of Jack Conrad ("Stone Cold" Steve Austin from the WWE), who is awaiting the death penalty in a Central American prison. He 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, all the while being broadcast worldwide over the Internet.
Billed as an adrenalin-charged action thriller, it really works much better as just a campy B-movie loaded with violence. It's got a very thin plot, dumb dialogue, cheesy special f/x and for good measure some self-righteous sermons. Is that all bad? Well, you tell me. I actually found it sort of fun, in a big dumb way.
I mean compared to other WWE movies; like The Marine (with John Cena) and See No Evil (with Kane), this is Oscar material. Can Stone Cold act? Well, if you consider a scowl and punching a lot of people in the face acting... then maybe.
There is violence, like I said, and plenty of it. There are women in tank tops. There are action sequences framed by loud rock music (Nickelback, Egypt Central, Prodigy and The Eels to name a few). There are explosions. There are fights.
It's sort of a newer age version The Running Man, but in more of a snuff film sort of way. The violence is just pretty brutal at times and the film has a nasty mean streak.
Still though, I can see a cleaned up version of this running on Spike TV's marathon-man-movie weekends before long.
5.5/10
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