Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here, with a bold statement even for me: The world's action heroes are a dying breed.

The Bruce Willis-Sylvester Stallone-Arnold Schwarzenegger crew are too old or too entrenched in politics to be convincing (despite the fact that Willis' latest DIE HARD entry is about to be released, and Stallone is currently filming a new Rambo movie). For a time it looked like wrestling phenom The Rock was poised to become the world's next great action star, but with films like GRIDIRON GANG and the upcoming SOUTHLAND TALES, even he seems more determined to succumb to the draw of "serious" acting. Some big actors today (Pitt, Damon, Clooney, Dicaprio, Wahlberg, Cruise) certainly seem willing to pick up a big gun every so often, but none of them are fully committed to the genre like their predecessors were in the 1980s and '90s. Another wrestling superstar seems willing to take the reigns as an action king, and with his first feature role in THE CONDEMNED, Steve Austin (formerly of the "Stone Cold" variety), might very well make that happen.

THE CONDEMNED is a mean movie. It's about as down and dirty as it gets these days, and it's something of a throwback to a type of film I haven't seen in at least 10 years. This is the kind of film in which rape or the threat of rape (I counted two barely veiled sequences here in which the event isn't exactly dwelled upon, but it's not off-screen either) passes for entertainment, and sheer brutality is the name of the game. I may be coming across as putting this film down for choosing this path, but really, I'm just letting you know what you'd be dealing with if you think you might like to see this film.

THE CONDEMNED is not a particularly original work; it borrows heavily from betters working ranging from THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME to BATTLE ROYALE. Here, a group of death row prisoners from all over the world are assembled at a secret island location by a media giant to fight each other to the death. The all wear explosives strapped to their ankles, and if there is more than one of them still alive at the end of a certain time period, they all die. The anklewear seems a bit too easy to set off by other means, which leads to some spectacular moments of bodies exploding, with body parts flying all over the place.

Austin plays one of the contestants in this game, in which the winner is set free, but it is made clear that he may be falsely imprisoned. I guess this makes him a good guy, but that doesn't make him the least dangerous. Since most of the other prisoners (including a couple of women) are played by largely unknown actors, it's no surprise that the final showdown is between Austin and the film's only other name player, Vinnie Jones as the film's resident psychopath. Next to the exciting and terrifying Jones, Austin seems grossly understated as an actor, but not completely ineffectual. He's given relatively little dialogue, which is probably a good thing, and his delivery of some of the film's attempted catch phrases is promising.

THE CONDEMNED lingers on most of its death sequences, which as a practice I don't usually mind, but it lacks a certain artistry to its brutality. With a higher body count than most horror films of late, you'd think director and co-writer Scott Wiper might try a little harder to dazzle us with originality and make a more memorable entry in the killing-as-sport genre. I liked the idea that the island was covered with cameras so that almost every event is captured for a web-based audience to see.

I also liked the performance by HOSTEL's Rick Hoffman as the lead tech guy on the project, who might be the only person in the movie that acts like a fully formed human being. His morals regarding this project are constantly in flux. But this being a WWE production (complete with a Vince McMahon executive producer credit), I'm guessing the people this film is being targeted toward aren't going to be nearly as morally challenged by what's happening on screen. The verdict is still out on whether Steven Austin can become our next big action hero, but for all the faults in THE CONDEMNED, his enthusiasm for this material is not one of them.

Capone