Entertainment | Film & Cinema
Movie Reviews: The Tournament
A contest pitting the world's deadliest assassins against each other, The Tournament is fast-paced and highly competitive.
- By Sarah Alphans, Sub Editor, Eplus
- Published: 00:00 November 12, 2009
- Lai Lai, a Chinese assassin is in the game to seek redemption
- Image Credit: Supplied
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, Ian Somerhalder, Liam Cunningham, Ving Rhames
Director Scott Mann
Rating TBA
Set in Britain, director Scott Mann keeps the viewer's head spinning with this action-packed thriller that features a mixed bag of redemption, betrayal and revenge.
M.C. Powers (Liam Cunningham) and his rich cronies indulge themselves once every seven years. Their seven-year instalments come in the form of a tournament that brings together 30 assassins to battle it out for a cash prize of $10 million. Powers, the man behind this bizarre contest, is very rich and well-connected; so much so that all the mayhem resulting from the game is kept under wraps or simply blamed on criminals.
So secret is the contest that the killers simply get a hotel room key and a date in the post. Once in the game, they all have a tracking bug surgically implanted so that they can be tracked by their opponents. The world's richest people, who gather to bet on the various outcomes, watch the unfolding events via CCTV. However, this years' tournament has a new twist, - it has a 24-hour time limit. The tracking bugs are programmed to detonate if more than one player is still alive when the time runs out.
It is a deadly incentive for assassins to get to work.
After a seven-year hiatus reigning champion Joshua Harlow (Ving Rhames) is baying for blood.
He is seeking revenge for the death of his wife Mary, as he has been informed that her killer is also in the game. As the tournament begins, a parlour style assassin, Bogart (Sebastien Foucan), removes his tracking device and dumps it in a pot of coffee. Joseph Macavoy, a priest played by Robert Carlyle, suddenly finds he has become a target when he drinks the coffee and accidentally swallows the bug. Perhaps the director thought it would be a good idea to introduce a priest to the mix to bring in some saving grace.
Meanwhile, Lai Lai, a beautiful Chinese assassin, is in the game to seek redemption, as she is haunted by her last hit — an innocent pregnant woman, who is apparently Joshua's wife, Mary.
Confused? There is more to it.
Lai Lai quickly realises that Macavoy is not a player and decides to protect him.
They manage to kill or evade most of the assassins, but Joshua tracks them down. He learns from Lai Lai that Mary was just a bait by Powers to ensure he took part in the tournament. Enraged with Powers' plans, Joshua goes out to seek revenge on the ringmaster.
For action junkies, The Tournament delivers some great action scenes with most of them absurd and over-the-top.
Overall, the film is definitely a little bit overdone, with the violence, bloodshed and eccentric characters that make you question the meaning of the game.
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