bob the moo Season 7 of the popular reality television show "The Contenders" returns with reigning champion Dawn Lagarto still dominant despite being heavily pregnant. This season sees five new contestants randomly selected by lottery for the game show. The rules are simple – each contestant is given a gun and a rifle as well as a choice of other weapons and protective gear. From this point they are separated from their families and joined by a camera crew who will shadow them throughout their time in the show. The winner? Well, whoever is left standing when the others are all dead wins their freedom and life.I remember hearing about this show years ago when it came out but I had never seen it being shown anywhere until it popped up on late night television the other week. It is depressing but the film is actually more relevant now than it was then simply because reality shows have continued down the road that they were on when this was made. Of course it has not gone as far as murder-television but with celebs eating bugs, Big Brother causing protests in India and many other extremes it is hard not to appreciate the point the film is making here.The strength of the film is that it accurately recreates the staples of the genre in the repetitive nature of clips, heavy voice-over use, trailers for coming next, interviews with the contestants and so on. Looking at the genre cynically you could say that the show also gets other things right – specifically the manipulation of footage, the way emotional interest in the contestants is falsely generated and of course the way that conflict and fighting is produced to keep the viewer interested. This aspect of it works well and it really does capture the look and feel of the genre, setting it up well to deliver a scathing attack on the genre from the inside.Unfortunately it is here where it falls down somewhat because it is not as sharp or as clever as it would like to think. OK it does the genre as well as any reality show, but the ability to turn this on itself is lacking. Of course the idea appalled me as a viewer and that was the point – that the viewer would question the genre on the basis of this film, but I do not think it asks enough of the audience to make this happen. In fact, once you get over the concept, it can almost be watched as a reality show of sorts and I imagine fans of the genre could easily miss the point of the film – mainly because it doesn't make one that well. It will sound like a strange criticism but I do think that by hitting the genre spot on throughout the film, the result is that it is almost too "straight" to act as an attack at the same time. Instead it is just an exaggeration and it leaves the viewer to do the work.The cast are OK, no really good performances but they certainly deliver the turns that convince within what I expect from the genre (and I write this as a guilty but unrepentant viewer of America's Next Top Model and a couple of other trashy shows). Smith, Burke, Venture, Wever and Fitzgerald all do well enough without ever threatening to be real characters. The only member of the cast that really stuck in my mind though was Arnett, who turns up in a small role – but he was memorable to me for being Gob in Arrested Development, not for what he did here! Overall then, this is a very convincing extreme version of reality television that remains topical due to the genre becoming more and more extreme and cruel, not the film itself hitting points well. However beyond this design and structure there is not a sharp criticism or message to be had and as a result there is not much of a message other than the obvious one about the path that reality TV is on and why cruelty or suffering of others should be acceptable as entertainment. Topical – but not as sharp or clever as one would have hoped it could have been.

DutchECK Okay, so maybe a 'what if' scenario regarding reality TV isn't exactly original. It's been done before, ad nauseum even. But while most films and books on this limit themselves to asking one question -'how far are we willing to let reality TV go?'- The Contenders adds another, equally interesting question: 'how much of reality TV is real?' While most other reality TV spoofs are told as a story, The Contenders has all the look and feel of an actual show, including a logo, a voice-over, inane 'cliffhangers' and many 'we'll be right back' messages. Because of this, the audience is drawn into the film as if they were watching Survivor or Big Brother. You know it's not real, but you still wonder who will win the game and how things will play out. And in that lies the third question of the film: 'what is so attractive about reality TV?' The Contenders may not have the most original of topics, but its format and the way it's played out does add more depth than the average reality TV spoof.

QuickStopVA The concept is great - give 6 people weapons and let them start killing each other. But when they killed Merritt Wever, the film lost it's flavor and became a crappy, yet twisted love story. Personally, I wanted Lindsay Berns to win. I'm a fan of Merritt Wever, and when her character was brutally beaten to death (by a frickin' cane, how dumb is that?), I just didn't care to watch the movie anymore. It's just not believable after that. Are we supposed to think that she got beaten to death by a 72 year-old man with a metal cane? He was barely hitting her with it!Character development was good, for the most part. The movie focused mainly on Dawn and Jeffrey, and very little on Franklin. Everyone else is in between. Development of Connie's character was really good, as I really wanted her to die. Her first kill was tactless and she was a b*tch.But that's just me. I'm biased. All around good movie.

Dinerboy Six people from a medium sized town are chosen at random in a government-sanctioned lottery to participate, whether they want to or not, in a "reality" show called Series 7, the Contenders. Rules are simple - kill the other 5 before they kill you. Last one left alive wins.The characterizations and plotting of this satire may leave a lot to be desired, but the extremely contrived plot (though I hesitate to use the term) twists and Jerry Springer-ish performances by the contenders and their families hit the bulls eye in mocking and parodying what we see every day on talk and reality shows. If you're not a fan of reality shows, you'll likely find the many soliloquies and sappy "moments" cloying and distracting, and wish for more action, such as it is. Even if you can accept the premise at face value, the movie has the believability of the absurdest of soap operas. Still, it's entertaining, not overly long, and worth a watch.