The priest MacAvoy (Robert Carlyle) is mistaken for a killer, because he cannot get rid of an electronic signal transmitter. Various other killers chase him, while only Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu) helps him. The story goes back a long way to the 1965 classic "The Tenth Victim" by Elio Petri, a killers' tournament for the pleasure of a TV audience. The big difference to various other movies shot in recent years about the same subject is that the hero of the movie is not the toughest killer of them all who will probably win the tournament. Instead we have a guy who is terribly scared, running and hiding. Whereas we usually get a hero who is well prepared for the battle, we have someone here who has no idea how to escape. Thus 'The Tournament' becomes an action movie with a difference. A weak point, however, is the description of the tournament organizers. There is a bunch of guys sitting around a table full of money, but they remain cartoon images of bad rich people without any depth. The action sequences, on the other hand, are fast and well done which probably caused a lot of comparisons to 'Crank' and such like.
Review of The Tournament
