The Tournament

I'm not sure why I decided to watch The Tournament, a film that came and went without a murmur. The premise of a battle to the death tournament has been done to death the last being The Condemned starring Stone Cold Steve Austin. But despite knowing the film would probably suck, I still decided to invest ninety minutes of my life to this and I'm glad I did. Mainly because I was supposed to paint the garden fence, but it began to rain so I saved myself from getting wet. The film though was terrible!

If you're looking to sign a bad ass black man for a role you go for Samuel L Jackson, if you can't afford him you may settle for Laurence Fishbourne, if you're on a tighter budget you may have to plump for Ice Cube or Wesley Snipes, but if you're really desperate then you're left with Ving Rhames who plays said bad ass in The Tournament. Ving isn't exactly bad in this, but he's not great either, then again the script and dialogues he had to work with meant he was on a loser from the get go.

Joshua Harlow (Ving Rhames) is the reigning champion of an underground tournament hosted by some dude called Power (Ian Cunnigham). The rules of the tournament are simple, 30 of the worlds top assassins are pitted against each other, the winner gets $10,000000 dollars and the title of the Worlds No. 1. Seven years later having retired from a life of violence, Joshua is lured back in to the tournament after his wife is murdered and one of the other assassins competing in the tournament is alleged to be the culprit. Meanwhile, the assassin with a heart, Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu) finds herself having to protect alcoholic priest Father McAvoy (Robery Carlyle) after a surgically implanted tracking device used to keep tabs on the assassins finds its way in to Father McAvoys coffee. The two go on the run as a host of assassins close in on them.

As mentioned earlier, the story is nothing new, in fact The Tournament lacks innovation and variation from its predecessors making it just another movie with an ensemble cast and lots of gruesome kills. With the cast at his disposal, Scott Mann missed out on an opportunity to make a half decent movie but instead we get a rehashed movie that carries very little entertainment value.

Only watch this if the only other option is Death Race!