ABOUT halfway though “The Con demned,” somebody on screen exclaims: “This is wrong, this is sick!” She’s talking about the reality show within the film, but she might just as well be describing this sickeningly violent and inane movie.
A sleazeball Internet producer, Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone), bribes wardens at some of the world’s nastiest prisons into freeing 10 people on death row, including a married couple.
Breckel copters them to a remote island in Papua New Guinea (Australia, actually), where they are to fight to the death.
The last man or woman standing will go free with a fistful of dollars. If they don’t kill each other, a red explosive device attached to their ankles will do the job.
Breckel is streaming the action live on the Internet (spy cameras have been set up all over the island), charging $49.99 a pop. He hopes to get as many viewers as the Super Bowl does. And he doesn’t care how much blood is spilled.
We don’t learn much about the cons’ background, but we do discover that one of them, Conrad (played by pro wrestling star Stone Cold Steve Austin), was in a hellish South American prison because he was double-crossed by his employer, the FBI.
“The Condemned,” directed by Scott Wiper (appropriate last name), is a bad rip-off of the 2000 Japanese sensation “Battle Royale” and the 1932 U.S. classic “The Most Dangerous Game.”
Wiper makes no attempt to humanize his characters or to add a bit of desperately needed humor. No, folks, this movie is an unrelenting onslaught of savage, stomach-churning violence for the sake of savage, stomach-churning violence.
If I weren’t reviewing, I would have walked out.
Amazingly, “The Condemned” received an R rating, more proof that the censors are more concerned with sex and nudity (there is none here) than violence.
Is a young person to be scarred for life by a quick view of a woman’s nipple, but not by the sight of people inflicting unthinkable horror on fellow humans? The raters haven’t a clue.
There is little acting required, but chrome-dome Austin extends himself grunting and snarling and looking pissed. Compared to him, Wesley Snipes is Laurence Olivier.
The script tries a bit of moralizing, pointing a finger at “sick” reality TV. I’ll let you in on a secret: The suits at Lionsgate who green-lighted this despicable catastrophe are far sicker than any real-life Breckel.
vam@nypost.com
THE CONDEMNED
Zero stars
The die is cast.
Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (extreme violence and profanity). At the Empire, the Loews Village, the Magic Johnson, others.