The Tournament

The Tournament 2009
Director: Scott Mann
Writers: Gary Young, Jonathon Frank and Rick Rowntree
Starring Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, Ving Rhames, Ian Somerhalder, Liam Cunningham, Sebastian Foucan, Craig Conway, John Lynch, Nick Rowntree, Rachel Grant, Andy Nyman, Iddo Goldberg and Scott Adkins

The Most Dangerous Game is a film that has been modeled after many times and it has made some excellent action films. Two of my personal favorites of this genre is Avenging Force and Hard Target. Now comes The Tournament, a film that combines that plot idea with the current fascination with reality programming and pay per view events. This is definitely one of the wildest action films I have seen in awhile and is really bloody as hell. It has a solid cast, with one of the finest English actors around now, Robert Carlyle. He is supported by the always delightful Kelly Hu and the intensity of Ving Rhames. The idea of having a all out kill or be killed tournament every 7 years for the honor of who is the greatest assassin is a great concept. This film runs with it well and each action sequence is more bloody and over the top than the last. The film really lets both the blood and the body parts fly around freely and it makes for a truly unforgettable cinematic experience.
The plot basics are this, every 7 years a tournament takes place in a undisclosed location where 30 of the worlds greatest assassins take on each other to discover who is the greatest assassin and they also take home a large sum of money. The last tournament's reigning champion, Joshua Harlow (Rhames) returns and it seems he has a vendetta to avenge, the assassination of his pregnant wife. All of the contestants have a tracking device implanted in their body and if their is no clear winner at the end of the 24 hours of the contest it is rigged to explode. One assassin digs out his tracker and a drunk Catholic priest, Father MacAvoy (Carlyle) accidentally ingests it and is now part of the equation. He teams up with a Chinese assassin, Lai Lai (Hu) who it seems may have something to do with Harlow and why he has rejoined the tournament. Lai Lai decides to help MacAvoy out and keep him alive until he can remove the tracking device from his body, while dispatching all the other assassins that are gunning for them. It soon becomes clear that Powers (Cunningham), the mastermind behind the Tournament has been the puppet master behind everything and it all comes to a head when Harlow discovers the true answer for all his problems.
This was an exceptional action film. The direction by Mann is superb, the film has the kinetic feel of a John Woo film with all the twists and turns of a conspiracy film and peppered throughout with dazzling chase sequences. He films the fight scenes expertly, with the scene in Lai Lai's hotel room being one of the best examples of this. It is also great how he juxtaposes the sadness of Father MacAvoy's situation with the killing that is going around him in his city. The script is smart and witty. The characters are all fully realized and sharply drawn. Lai Lai is probably my favorite character as she is a very strong central character who had a moment of weakness she now has to pay for. Harlow is a great vengeance seeking character and he really shines when he is almost killed in the bar scene. The cast really supports the fine story too. Carlyle is not someone you would think to see in a film like this, but he does an excellent job playing the stranger in a strange land persona here. Hu is dynamic as Lai Lai and has some of the best action sequences in the film. Rhames as always steals the show and the viewer cannot help but root for him and hope he gets the mind behind the machinations of his dilemma. Cunningham as the man behind the Tournament, Powers is delightfully sleazy, opportunistic and evil. Everything you want in the main villain of a action film. The SFX and effects in the film are intense and a delight to watch. My favorite bit has to be the shoot out in the bar where the assassins are blowing away anything in sight, be it their targets or a stripper that just gets in the way. It is very bloody and very exploitative and that is what I love about the film. It has no problem getting down and dirty and really revels in it. This is a action film that operates on the level of something like Smoking Aces and for that reason it gets my highest recommendation.
This one gets 5 out of 5