Doomsday Reels: Elimination Game

Elimination Game AKA Turkey Shoot (2014)

The Director

Jon Hewitt

The Actors

Dominic Purcell (Rick Tyler), Vivi Bianca (Jill Wilson), Robert Taylor (Ramrod), Belinda McClory (Meredith Baxter), Nicholas Hammond (General Thatcher), Carmen Duncan (The President), Suzannah McDonald (Teena Fine), Juan Jackson (Tom Faye), Roger Ward (The Dictator)

The Trailer

The Cause

World War

The Story

"Turkey Shoot's the game, and you're the turkey. The game has three levels and hidden in every level is this box. You have a GPS with its coordinates and the lock is activated by your thumbprint. So... here's the deal. Locate and open the box within the time limit and proceed to the next level. Run out of time and you're eliminated." - Meredith Baxter

The Rundown

Unlike most of modern film fandom I do not bear any ill will toward remakes. There is not a single documented case of a remake ruining its forebear and even the most soul-less waste of time remake is still an interesting study into what a writer, a director, or even a movie studio saw in a movie that they felt was worthy of bringing into a new film. Are remakes often better than the originals? I couldn't care less. All films deserve to be judged on their own merits whether they be remakes, prequels, or the eighth part in a franchise. A lot of times a remake can clean up some of the weaker elements in an older film and expand on the good qualities, or maybe it's a different take on a property from a new perspective. Sometimes though, they're just sly remakes of another movie with a similar conceit. That is Elimination Game.

Ostensibly a remake of the Brian Trenchard-Smith film Turkey Shoot, this movie and that share very little connective tissue. We have a character named Thatcher, a non-speaking cameo from Roger Ward, a brief clip of the original film on a TV under its shitty US-release title Escape 2000, and the general concept of hunters hunting a prisoner.

Elimination Game is the story of Rick Tyler, a Navy SEAL who is alleged to have murdered a group of women and children but has no recollection of it due to a bullet wound to his brain. Rick has been put on a high-profile game show where heinous criminals are allowed to perform a series of challenges with the hope of a full pardon, the only catch is that they're being hunted by a colorful and eclectic group of murderous weirdos. If you squint that's kind of a remake of Turkey Shoot, but it's really more of a remake of The Running Man funneled through the straight-to-DVD lens of mediocrity used by Death Race 2.

Being derivative isn't an automatic mark against the film, all these movies are really just elaborate adaptations of The Most Dangerous Game after all, but Elimination Game exists in a world where the Death Race remake trilogy exits, where Death Race 2050 exists, where Stone Cold Steve Austin vehicle The Condemned exists, where Asylum produced Insane Clown Posse-starring cash-in film Death Racers exists. The market is saturated so to stand out this movie is really going to have to do something interesting and it doesn't. There is not a more middle-of-the-road, dull, straight-to-video action film than this movie. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the face of Dominic Purcell, who looks both annoyed and moderately embarrassed all throughout the movie. Don't believe me?

The official face of "just pay me and … — The official face of "just pay me and let me go home."

"I'm so put out that I might actually button my shirt all the way."

I realize that Dominic Purcell is not the world's greatest actor but this film feels like he's slumming it hard and no one is more aware of that than he is. He doesn't so much phone his performance in as he delivers it under duress. Purcell's investment in his role is still more significant than that of the writer. Rick Tyler has no personality at all, he could be played by any third-rate action star, MMA fighter, or professional wrestler. Gary Daniels and Olivier Gruner would've been too talented for this role, even Steven Seagal's "acting" would be too cerebral for this part. The only way I could see the character improving would be someone like a Roddy Piper or Bruce Campbell adding a goofy element to him but Dominic Purcell has shown no sense of comic timing in anything I've ever seen and this movie takes itself too seriously for a camp version of this character to not stand out.

Speaking of standing out, the movie is far too serious but has these weird bumper segments where our perspective switches to the studio audience watching the show and the two over-the-top hosts and I literally cannot tell if these scenes are meant to be funny or not. They aren't funny, I can say that with absolute clarity but I'm not sure if they're intended as satire or if nobody told the two actors playing the announcers that this wasn't that kind of movie.

On that subject, I'm really not sure if we're meant to take the hunters seriously either. They are not the least bit intimidating but there's no clever hook like in the original Turkey Shoot. They all look like random crew members pulled in front of the cameras and given prop weapons and while they all look ridiculous the only one that's any fun is Haakon, a large shirtless man who looks hilariously similar to Trouble City's own Andrew Hawkins.

There's a major plot-point where Rick is saved from the game by a fellow soldier, played by Spartacus' Vivi Bianca who does the best she can with her nothing character. They're going to see General Thatcher on his death bed in hopes of finding a way to clear Rick's name and end World War Africa (apparently even World Wars have shitty direct-to-video spinoff sequels.) Arguably this is the main plot of the movie but it feels like filler for the game sequences which are competent but distressingly lackluster.

This movie is just a humongous shrug. Turkey Shoot isn't really a good movie at all but it's filled with silly and compelling elements that make it an entertaining movie and a cornerstone of Ozploitation cinema. Elimination Game has no sense of humor (or at least no competence in using it), no compelling characters, a boring and derivative story, boringly adequate production values, and not one single crossbow firing lesbian rapist or top hat-wearing wolfman. The movie only even has one gore effect and it's used in a flashback. Elimination Game has no distinguishing characteristics to set it apart from The Marine 5 or any movie Adrian Paul has been in and that's likely why it was given such a boring re-titling. Who cares if this lives up to the legacy of Turkey Shoot, is there any reason to watch this movie at all?

Elimination Game is a perfectly competent movie from a technical standpoint but there is nothing to see here, folks. If you need Dominic Purcell's overly-exposed chest in your life so bad go check out one of his entertaining movies like Gravedancers or Primeval, those are far more deserving of your love and attention.