The Tournament

[SoSheOhPathix]

Genre: Action

Liam Cunningham, Ving Rhames, Keely Hu (Yum), Robert Carlyle.

In a nutshell:
Every seven years, 30 of the world's top assassins get together in a town somewhere, to take part in a 'last man standing' (or lying there, bleeding... just so long as you still have a pulse...) competition, to be declared the very best (or last. Let's face it. If you're the only one left, you are quite obvioulsy the best), and scoop up a $ 10 million prize.
This is all arranged by a 'corporation' which caters to the gambling needs of some super-duper rich people.
(It would also be an excellent ploy by law enforcement, to have them grease each other, thereby eliminating all paid assassins, every 7 years, leaving only noobs that can be caught)

Basically, they hijack the entire town. Traffic cameras, public and private CCTV systems, telephone networks, cellular networks, the whole shabang!
Then they drop in 30 assassins whom they have fitted with tracking devices (they also measure vitals and transmit when the competitor croaks). All assasssins are given palm-pilot thingies, so they can find each other, so to prevent them camping or playing hide-and-seek, I guess.
Then the clock starts. They have 24 hours to wipe each other out.

There are a number of different 'styles' of assassins, from 'lob grenades all over the place', through snipers, up to one particularly nasty Parkour French dude, and of course, Kelly Hu (did I mention? Yum!!).
One assassin come up with a sneaky plan, which I was considering the moment the rules were laid down, and ends up getting a civvie Catholic priest (Robert Carlyle) mixed up in the fun, as a 'competitior'.

There really isn't that much of a story line , despite them trying to add in elements of revenge, humour, morality, etc. but the action sequences are pretty good. There are some pretty good hand-to-hand sequences, and that Parkour dude... damn!

From a mindless entertainment perspective, it's worth a spin in the DVD player, but certainly isn't a chick-flick, or anything you'll want the young kids to watch, due to gratuitous gore.
I'll give it a 7/10.