TheTournament

The Tournament (2009)

Does anyone else remember the action movies of the 80s? You know the ones that were filled with over the top action and villains that dropped funny one-liners before getting what was coming to them. Well if you like those movies then you need to check out the Tournament. The story here revolves around a tournament that is held every 7 years and pits 30 trained assassins against each other. At stake is the title of the greatest killer in the world and a big cash payoff. All this happens while a group of wealthy big shots watch from a hidden locations and wager on the outcome of each fight. The location is always some location that can be isolated, with the locals serving as shields and potential collateral damage. To further complicate things a returning champion joins the game looking for revenge (one of the other contestants killed his wife) and a local priest is unwittingly thrust into the action when another contestant dupes him into swallowing a tracking device.

This really is a cool movie. The story is fast paced with lots of action being tossed at the audience. But even while it maintains a manic pace, they do manage enough character development that the audience (well at least me) starts to root for certain characters. For example the Lia Lia and Father Macavoy are fun and interesting to watch. Unlike many of the newer action movies, which really don’t seem to be much more than video games you can’t control, these are real characters. Now don’t get me wrong this is an action movie and like most of my favorite action movies the plot is thin and character development is light, but there is some plot and some attempts to create characters. That alone makes The Tournament stand out from most of the nonsense that has tried to pass itself off as action movies as of late.

The other thing that I noticed right away about The Tournament is that the action is nicely choreographed and shot. There is a bit of the camera shaking around during some of the hand-to-hand stuff, but there are also some cool shootouts. There is one particular set piece in a strip bar that is several minutes long and is a lot of fun. In addition to doing a good job with the action the movie also doesn’t shy away from the blood and guts. You get fingers garroted off, heads exploding, a man on a scooter vs. a double decker bus, and not 1, but 4 exploding bodies! Hell this thing is bloodier than a lot of horror movies I’ve seen and it was a blast (pun intended).

Seriously if you are looking for a good old-fashioned action movie that will remind you of the glory days of Arnold and Sly then I think you should check out The Tournament. It isn’t trying to reinvent the genre or do anything other than be an entertaining bit of action cinema. I recommend it.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer