At first glance, the storyline looks like a distant cousin to the Japanese movie Battle Royale. Instead of having sent unruly students to an island and see them finish off one another, The Condemned follows the same lines of having 10 death row prisoners from around the world being brought to an island, and given a simple rule to kill everyone else in order to earn their survival, and freedom. They are similarly rigged with an explosive device which if tampered, or if they choose not to participate, they too will be blown to bits.

But there's where the similarity stops. There's no PA system to tell the scattered involuntary participants just how many survivors there are (thus leading to a loophole),and there are multiple camera rigs installed on the island, for the purpose of entertainment. The Condemned plays on some of our intrinsic nature of wanting to watch gladiatorial styled violence, and given that such content will probably never get on the TV networks, the fairly sci-fi turned reality TV over IP concept gets its airtime here. What networks refuse to screen and produce, you can, given the right equipment and personnel, and plenty of computing power.

Pay-per-view IPTV using credit cards is the road to riches for the game producer Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone),who champions the thought of producing content that audiences around the world want to watch. His argument was that these handpicked participants are going to die anyway, and here, he's giving one of them the chance to live, a noble gesture to him. The Condemned mocks today's reality TV format, in that sometimes, the game can be manipulated to satisfy the producers' objectives, and we see that in abundance here.

Violence it seems is high on the agenda here - how much can an audience stomach, especially if say hypothetically, Big Brother type of series allow violence to be met out live, unedited and raw. Or are you going to play to those who pay, and give in to the demand? There's a constant argument being played out early in the movie about dignity and decency, but that gets forgotten fairly easily in a film like this one, falling victim to its own preachy statements.

Especially so when Sports Entertainment companies like WWE are involved in this one. WWE had its fair share of stars lending their "acting talent" to Hollywood, and I can go as far back as the late Andre the Giant lending his physical presence in The Princess Bride. Then you have Hulk Hogan in various forgettable flicks, The Rock in some charismatic roles (though some are as cheesy as that in Be Cool),and Kane in the horrid See No Evil. Here, Stone Cold Steve Austin plays the lead role of Jack Conrad, an inmate with an unspecified past, who becomes someone more than anyone had bargained for.

But the star unfortunately is not Austin, as much as he plays the anti-hero. Vinny Jones, as British prisoner Ewan McStarley, clearly stole his thunder, and injected more personality into his maniacal character. While the format of the game had the prisoners from different parts of the world to allow everyone a chance to root for their home players, it was at times ironic that USA had to battle UK so prominently in the movie, and that the "with me or against me" line just brings to mind the many scenarios as played out ever so often. It's ra-ra for the USA in an in-your-face fashion, with eye-for-an-eye violence dished out for avenging the weak and wounded, and the showing of compassion to those who needs it.

The make up of the team of pla yers too is interesting on purpose, with female players up against male ones (and what happens is such an easy guess),and Survivor styled formation of alliances, outwitting, outlasting, outplaying all being key to survival, but the story, with so many characters, dictate that you cannot go beyond what is superficially shown. Of course the leads got a little more background to show for, but you find that these happen to be just cosmetics, unnecessarily inflating the screening duration.

The Condemned tried to be a little deep, but ended up tossing its attempts aside to settle for an all out action movie towards the end, and what I thought was bordering on the ridiculous at Austin's ability. For action junkies, the sequences here might be a little repetitive with its usual big explosions, and the extreme closeups of violence using the shaky hand-held camera technique just irritates. If the premise still excites you after all the mentioned flaws, then The Condemned managed to appeal to you with its in-movie concept - I think you'll pay US $49.95 should there be a channel like this on the internet.

Imagine an American remake of BATTLE ROYALE with a cast of wrestlers and hard-men actors (and actresses) instead of schoolchildren and you have, in a nutshell, THE CONDEMNED.

It's a violent RUNNING MAN-type movie that sees ten fighters dropped off on a deserted island where they must battle to the death. The action plays out to Internet subscribers (a nod to the modern era) whilst the old "exploding collars" are present around each muscled calf and weapons are dropped in by parachute. Sound familiar? It is, and yet the scriptwriters attack this familiar premise with gusto.

The movie is very fast paced and full of incident. Having previously watched two other WWE-made films (one of which, a gory horror entitled SEE NO EVIL, was okay, while the other, a would-be action flick called THE MARINE, was terrible) I was in two minds about this one, but I found it the best yet. Not because it's original – it's not, and it never strives to be. But the direction is well handled and the situations frequently exciting. Sure, the characters could have been better drawn and the villains are rather weak – other than the typically larger-than-life Vinnie Jones – but director Scott Wiper handles his plot elements with no shortage of style.

Steve Austin is the hulking hero, a guy whom it's easy to like in this film. The supporting cast, including the likes of Rick Hoffman and the gigantic Nathan Jones and a couple of buxom women, are very good. The violence is shocking and occasionally disturbing, and the action sequences, although brief, are well shot and fitfully exciting. There are a few procrastinations on the nature of violence in the media and man's inhumanity to man, which I felt got in the way of the story a little, but for the most part THE CONDEMNED does the job nicely.

Ian Breckel is producing an internet show that takes prisoners from around the world and make them fight to the death. Jack Conrad (Steve Austin),Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones) and the rest of the fighters are dropped off on a deserted island. They are fitted with explosive ankle devices. The last one to survive gets his freedom.

Robert Mammone is a weak choice for a villain. Rick Hoffman would have been much better. At least, he would have had fun with the role. It takes almost 15 minutes to get to Steve Austin. That's not right. The movie needs to be about him. This is a WWE production and it's an excuse for these fighters to get in some hand-to-hand action. It's fun on that level but nothing else.