The Tournament (2009)

Every seven years 30 of the best assassins in the world get together for a winner take all tournament pitting them against each others for a 10 million dollar prize. (How they determine who are the top 30 is not mentioned. I am sure they would have their own trading cards if they could) Using tracker technology and CC cameras they are able to find each other and be viewed by a betting clientele of high rollers. That is the premise behind this movie starring Kelly Hu and Robert Carlyle. She is one of the assassins and he is a drunken priest mistakenly brought into the contest after he helps her get rid of one of her competitors. Ving Rhames also stars as the past winner who is after the person who killed his wife. He re-enters the contest for personal reasons after realizing that her killer will be in this year's competition.

The assassins are a creative collection of psychopaths and the stunt work is first rate if a bit on the gruesome side. However, you don't watch a movie like this for the hugs and kisses. You watch for the action and you get a ton of that. Many of the deaths are quite creatively done. For example, if you are in close combat with someone it's best not to be wearing grenades on your belt. They just might be able to pull the pin and walk away at just the wrong time for you. Even though they have cellphones that can track each other it doesn't seem all that difficult to pick the assassin out of a room full of people. They all look sweaty and twitchy. And for being at the top of their profession they seem to take an awful lot of shots while hitting nothing. One shot - one kill should be the mantra to enter this club.


Ving Rhames is very good and menacing as all hell and I enjoyed the relationship between Hu and Carlyle. She finds her humanity and he finds his strength as they both are forced to rely on one another. Its a nice twist on an action film especially as the Father becomes a 'player' and starts to receiver odds by those running the 'game' (starting at 500 to 1). I am surprised this was direct to video and not generally released because there is a market for this kind of quality action picture.