Ridiculous action is not necessarily taken to a new level but it is certainly taken to a rather fun level in this straight up action flick. It's been done before, see The Condemned, Death Race or Mean Guns. They all feature people killing other people for a large sum of money and or freedom and the protagonist, except in the case of Mean Guns, is an innocent man. Robert Carlyle is the innocent man caught up in a violent game where the best assassins in the world meet up and kill each other while rich folk watch safely from a massive room on computer monitors. Instead of having the killers in an isolated place like an island or a prison the action all takes place in an everyday ordinary town, and the explosions and gunshots are then covered up by the million dollar corporation that runs it to look like terrorist attacks. This makes it more interesting but at the same time a little more macabre which could be better or worst depending on the viewer because there are lots and lots of innocent victims being gunned down here. Carlyle is the star and he is a fine actor but he does not do action like Rhames and Hu do. Somerhalder also is crazy fun as an over the top killer who just loves to kill, he chews up the scenery as his ridiculous over the top assassin, representing America here along with Rhames. The other assassins get some screen time but only up until they are killed off. The action is constant and very fun, the drama is here but not too much to pull away from the action and the characters that have more than several minutes of screen time are all very fun to watch some have some cool skills but for the most part it's all gun play. This is recommended for anyone who likes to watch stuff blow up and Ving Rhames do his thing. Any fan of Somerhalder should see this too because it seems like he does something totally different here and it is very cool. Nothing perfect, but definitely worth seeing for entertainment purposes.
Review of The Tournament
