The Eliminator

Plot synopsis:
Former LAPD cop, Dakota Varley (played by UFC champion Bas Rutten), enters a power boat race seeking the prize of $250,000, but immediately discovers, first hand, that this race's risk matches the prize: one racer is killed, 3 others seriously injured in multiple action-packed crashes and explosions. Varley prevails. Varley tries to leave the lake and collect his prize money but is drugged and kidnapped by Dawson (portrayed by Michael Rooker) and thrown into a different world: a world where survival means everything and no-one follows the rules. Varley awakens on an island, strapped to pole, like a pig being carried to a barbecue. Surrounded by heavily armed men, he soon learns that he and six other victims have been assembled to be contestants in the ultimate survival game: they will be stalked nightly by hunters with rifles until there is one remaining survivor, who will win a $10,000,000 cash prize! As the story unfolds, we meet the other contestants: Jesse is an undercover DEA agent in Venezuela; Santha is military instructor for a group of revolutionaries in Sierra Leone; and Darius is a sociopathic murderer, court-martialed and supposedly imprisoned by the U.S. Army for slaughtering 40 innocents in Kosovo. We also learn, in bits and pieces, that each contestant has been brought to the game by a "Player." Wealthy men and women who have each selected of one of the Contestants. Among these men are Carlos Alvarez, Venezuelan Drug Lord; U.S. Army General Ellison; and Ochiro Sumanni, a Japanese Gang Boss. All the while, we follow the Contestants as they struggle to survive the attacks not only by the hunters, but also from each other.

Tags: suspenseful, violence

Review:
The storyline involves 7 strangers of differing backgrounds being transfered (unwillingly) to an island by an equal number of rich people which bet 25 million $ on their contestant.
The island is the gameground on which guards are sent in groups to eliminate the contestants.
The last survivor is the victor the "deathmatch".I found quite a few similarities to Battle Royale.
Of course don't imagine this movie to be nearly as entertaining as Battle royale.
This was a clearly low budget effort, the cinematography was below average, the fighting scenes were bad and even the acting was horrible.I don't recommend this movie.
Sloppy cross between "Hard Target" and "Battle Royale".
"The Eliminator" is a slightly more professional effort than Bas Rutten's following movie, "The Vault", but that isn't saying much: it's still not very good.
The fights (the No. 1 reason for anyone watching this) are few (maybe 4 in total), brief, blurry, and gimmicked-up (slow motion, fast motion, etc.).
The script is not only blatantly derivative (of the films I mentioned above, and many others), but sloppy as well, especially in the last 20 minutes (one character practically disappears without a trace).
There is surprisingly little action overall, and too much wandering around the island.
I liked the professional stuntwoman Danielle Burgio - although she is not conventionally beautiful, I found her gorgeous in her own way - but she is largely wasted in this role.
Bas Rutten + Jungle = Total and Complete Non-Stop Awesome Sauce.
All I can say about this movie is: "GIVE ME SOME MORE!!!
I WANT SOME MORE!!!" This movie is the perfect, and I mean PERFECT, blend of Mixed Martial Arts, Bas Rutten (Dakota Varley), Marco Ruas (Salvador), marbles, Voltaire (played by Tony Boldi), android prisoners, and jungles.
The thought of using the jungle as a battleground was very inspirational, so all I can say is that this movie gave me "jungle fever".
I strongly think that this is Bas Rutten's true calling.
He really made me believe that he was stuck on an island and fighting for survival.
Some fight for freedom.
What does he fight for?
He made it quite clear in the movie that he fights for survival.
While watching this movie, I really believed that he wanted some more.
But Bas Rutten was not the only reason that this movie was as great as it was.
Paul Logan (Jesse) is a very wonderful actor whose credentials speak for themselves.
Check out his IMDb profile for the various cinematic tour de forces that he has been in.
Another reason that this movie, or rather, this work of art, was as great as it was was the wonderful performance by Michael Rooker (Miles Dawson).
His spectacular, wonderful, scrumtrilescent speech about marbles made me realize that he is a true villain.
All in all, I believe that this movie is the cinematic pinnacle from which all movies hereafter should strive for.
Thank you Bas. Thank you Paul.
Thank you Michael.
Thank you Marco.
Thank you android prisoner.
Thank you for everything..
My...God!.
this film fails in every way!
a very thin and worn out plot/storyline, discarded guns thrown away and randomly appearing again, dead people moving around the set.
And the CG is all bad, static fog, birds with cardboard wings, a wall that would make an Australian TV-show producer laugh his head off...
when all this is said, i wish i could give the movie only half a star, but the fights, and the hysterical laugh-outs gives it just "the right stuff" for another half a star!
this movie sucks...
i know this is the lowest form of critique, but there isn't really much good to say about it!THX for viewing!.
Bad movie, not worth it..
This was such an awful movie.
The only reason I didn't change the rating to a 1 was because of Bass Rutten, while he cant act, i just like him.
Thats the reason i saw this movie, because he was in it.
But this seriously isn't worth seeing.
Not a single person in the whole movie can act, the actors killed this movie.
This is seriously a bad movie, don't netflix it, don't rent it, don't watch it when your flipping channels.
Bass Rutten may be a skilled fighter, but that doesn't mean he can act.
A lot of these famous people, singers, celebrities, etc, think they can act because they can fight, or sing, or dance.
Its extremely evident here, and its just a crappy, low quality low grade movie.
poop from the beginning to the end.
I can't say is the worst movie I've ever seen, is the second one in the series.
Maybe Bas Ruten is a good fighter and maybe someday he will become an actor, who knows?
But why I am talking about Bas Ruten?
First of all I must talk about director, writing, plot or is better to never talk about these stuff, because are inexistent.
I've seen many movies in my life and in the last years 90% of all American movies are just garbage.
Is not a surprise if you discover that a movie so called great is so great just because it was seen by a stupid people.
Hey, you won't wake never?
The advertise and mass media, just had you all?
You have no brain still?
How could you make all the movie the same f.....g way?
They are fighting so many times without a single scratch, they are leaving the guns beside, they always find a way to reach the bad guys, you still believe in fairy tooth?
Or red hoodwinked?
Even Van Damme is better than this one.
Maybe you should start to see movies from Europe and to not believe everything is told to you by your beloved compatriots, the Americans.
A movie like this is enough to f.ck all the week-end and the next month too.
Is a perfect punish for your enemy..
Old and familiar formula done very badly.
As other users have pointed out, the basic idea behind "The Eliminator" is not a new one - it's the old "Most Dangerous Game" formula.
Despite the familiar plot, it still could have been enjoyable in a trashy yet satisfying B movie manner.
However, this particular telling is one of the worst I have seen in quite some time.
It quickly becomes clear that the production didn't have a lot of money to spend on production values (probably hiring actor Michael Rooker blew a lot of the limited budget.) The movie is terribly shot, from the washed out cinematography to the often incompetent lighting.
The movie is also terribly directed; there are a number of continuity errors, confusing moments, and the action scenes (the meat of the movie) come across more often than not as lame and unexciting.
And there is a constant feeling of the entire enterprise being done as cheaply and quickly as possible.Is there any merit to be found in the movie?
Well, there is Bas Rutten as the chief protagonist.
Don't get me wrong, he's a pretty poor actor, but he does have some charm and charisma that gets you to see he could do okay in a more professionally made movie.
Well, you can play a drinking game with your buddies.
Take a drink every time the action cuts to footage of the sun, clouds, or stars moving quickly across the sky.
You'll be seriously blotto by the end of the movie!
But if you want to see a GOOD telling of this old formula, seek out the B movies "Surviving The Game" and "Raw Courage" instead.
Terrible even by genre standards.
THE ELIMINATOR is another B-movie action flick along the lines of BATTLE ROYALE and THE CONDEMNED, which sees a group of disparate fighters abandoned on a tropical island, where they'll be hunted down by armed men every night.
The twist is that each fighter has his or her own sponsor backing them.Unfortunately, this turns out to be a complete waste of time, and actually one of the worst-made films I've seen in a good while.
The writing is mundane, but the direction is even worse; you rarely see films that have been edited this badly, with cameras in the wrong place and a general amateurish feel to the whole thing.
The poor quality also renders the low budget action sequences a mess, and impossible to enjoy.It goes without saying that the acting is equally bad, the cast populated by non-entities you've never heard of.
The exception is poor Michael Rooker (SLITHER), who must have grabbed his pay-cheque and run, and can you blame him?
THE ELIMINATOR is complete trash, impossible for even this B-movie fan to enjoy..
Nothing You Haven't Seen Before...
Except With Mixed Martial Arts Action!.
"Original" is a word that doesn't get used enough when reviewing movies, and I'm definitely not going to use it here.This movie has way too many similarities to Ice-T's and Rutger Hauer's "Surviving The Game" and Jean-Claude Van Damme's "Hard Target".
The other reviewer says it resembles Japan's "Battle Royale" as well, but I have yet to see that one.
One of the better things about this movie is seeing real Pancrase, UFC and other MMA fighters in this type of action movie.
I liked seeing the armbars and other submissions thrown into the fight scenes, as they did in this movie.
There was also a nice fight scene between Bas Rutten and Marco Ruas.
I also liked how they kept the women, even the stronger ones, weaker than the men in most cases.
This is how it would be in real life, and that's what I liked seeing in the movie (Nothing against women in general, but let's face it, with this group, there's not many women that could keep up with these characters).The plot of this movie has far too many similarities to the movies mentioned above.
I'll keep the review spoiler free, but just a quick plot run through.
There are 7 captured "contestants" who are hunted at night, with the last man alive winning a cool $10,000,000.
I don't have to say anything else, as I'm sure most of you can take it from here.One thing I felt the movie could improve upon was with the villain.
Movies nowadays don't have strong or mean enough villains.
You should be walking out of a movie thinking, "What a bastard that guy was!
I'm glad he got what was coming to him." Not just this movie, but most movies these days are like that.
Watch "Stone Cold" main bad guy and you'll see what I mean.
Enough on that rant.Anyhow, I'd like to see Bas Rutten do more action movies, but I feel he'd be a better villain than hero.
He did do much better here than I thought he would.
I think this movie is worth a rental if you get the chance.
'Straight to video' - you can see why !.
I've given the 3 solely for the excellent short story on which this is based.
For jaded wealthy people, the ultimate bet is on a human's ability to survive.
You produce your candidate, place your bet, put all the competitors on an island, then set the hunters on them - it's a winner-takes-all survival game.
Great plot, but, oh dear, what a mess has been made of it.
The film quality is blurry and often strangely-coloured, the editing is jumpy, the fight scenes phenomenally and cartoonishly unrealistic, the sound often not good, and the acting is mostly wooden, with the possible exception of Michael Rooker (Merle from 'The Walking Dead').
It is also full of random banks of cloud groaning across the sky !
On the other hand, the house where the rich gamblers congregate is very pretty.Really not worth wasting your time on, I'm afraid..
Martial arts muscleman Bas Rutten's first movie is a winner.
Bas Rutten was a legend in international UFC and he makes his debut as a world-class action star in The Eliminator.
The Dutch fighter is ruggedly handsome and built like the proverbial brick lavatory.
Spending the whole movie in tight fitting under armor (when he's not shirtless) this film showcases both his ripped physique and awesome fighting skills.Re-working the "Most Dangerous Game" plot one more time, we find Varley (Rutten) a some-time cage fighter trying to pay off some gambling debts by winning a speedboat race run by the shady Dawson, played by Michael Rooker.
When Varley wins the race - after causing another competitor's death in a fatal crash - Dawson realizes he's got just the rough and tumble guy he needs and drugs him.
Varley and six other badasses wake up on Dawson's private jungle island where they will be hunted for sport by trained military personnel until only one remains.
The game is watched by seven rich degenerates that have each sponsored one of the hunted and who stand to win $25 million if their man is left standing.
Of course, the seven are encouraged to also kill on another to improve their own odds.From a fortified mansion on the island's highest point, the game is monitored, as each night teams of hunters are sent out to kill as many of the hunted as they can.
One thing this flick has going for it is the quality of the fighters cast as the seven hunteds.
Jamal Duff, a former N.Y. Giant football standout at 6'8, 305 lbs of black intimidation, plays Darius, a prisoner snatched from death row.
Latino muscleman Marco Ruas, at 6'2, 240 lbs, isn't far behind, playing the Colombian killer Salvador.
The only other "good guy" on the island is the cop Jesse, played by Paul Logan -- a familiar action star with the kind of good looks and sculpted body that landed him his own centerfold in Playgirl .
The lovely Santha, played by Danielle Burgio, combines beauty with lethal fighting skills.
Even the anonymous hunters in their skintight spandex uniforms are built young studs.With trained killers like these stalking the island, the death matches come fast and furious.
Varley and Jesse team up to ice Salvador with the big Dutchman holding the powerful latino so Jesse can drive a homemade spear into his chest.
When the beautiful Santha joins them, Jesse isn't so sure about her motives, but Varley is smitten with her sexy good looks.
Later, when they all strip down to wash off in a stream, you can see she's also got an eye for Bas Rutten's chiseled physique.
Alone, she begins to make love to him causing Varley to close his eyes in ecstasy.
The next second Jesse appears to dispatch Santha with a chop to the neck.
Varley is furious until he sees the knife that was in her hand.
He thanks his buddy for saving his life and Jesse tells him to "stop thinking with the wrong head." Varley and Jesse continue to make their way to the mansion, slaying the hunters they encounter.
Darius and Varley finally square off in an epic fight and it takes every ounce of Varley's strength to break the black muscleman's neck.
When they reach the mansion, the two manage to take their revenge on Dawson and his henchman before fleeing the island in a stolen helicopter.
All in all, this movie delivers on the action and definitely makes us want to see big Bas Rutten kicking ass in another one.