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The Contenders is a very clever and very accurate satire of the modern phenomena of game
show-docu-soap reality TV that takes it's contemporaries to their logical extreme. Presented as the
eponynmous TV show it pits (un)lucky contestants picked from a
national lottery against each other with the simple premise: to win you must kill the
other contenders.
Director Minahan said he wanted to create a film that could be mistaken for the real thing and
he succeeds with breathtaking ease. The references abound: OJ, the hand-held style of Cops,
voyeuristic docu-drama of Real World, flashy MTV rapid-cut biographies, a bludgeoning use of pop music
to emote mood and the cliffhanger cutting between ads are all reciprocated. The characters are
classic cross-section stereotypes of age and society (although no
black characters) consolidating it's authenticity while the plastic-wrapped performances of the
cast prove astonishingly 'real'.
Following in the vein of Starship Troopers - minus the camp - the film
retreads the footsteps of fellow media satires The Running Man, Truman Show and Natural Born
Killers. However, where each of these infused their stories with wit or drowned them in their respective
genres, The Contenders holds true and heads straight for the jugular.
The film is relentless as it challenges and questions our perceptions of rather than sends up shows
like 'America's Dumbest' genre, Survivor and Big Brother (it's UK release was perfectly timed to
coincide with new series of the latter two).
From the off it takes no prisoners. Dateline today, it opens with the heavily-pregnant, reigning
contender walking into a store and shooting a rival contender in the back. Murder is
matter of fact. The satire neither glorifies nor moralises over events, glossing over the difficult issues,
MTV-style, content with a 5 second "kill or be killed" justification before moving on. It is pure
television - ambiguous soundbite morality exempt from responsibility.
Although labelled a black comedy, the film often refuses to be funny as it mirrors
modern televisual sensationalism so closely. The Contenders is a fascinating and disturbing slice of media
satire that leaves you realising we are only one step up (or down) the (TV) evolutionary ladder from
what we are watching.
And with calls for televised executions, a proliferation of video warfare and an uncomfortable
obsession with celebrity, you realise the real-life Contenders show isn't that far off. After all,
on television EVERYONE can hear you scream.
It's relatively long length leaves you overwhelmed at times - it's factual brothers and
sisters rolling in at under a third it's duration - but otherwise the perfect parody.
RATING: (c)Limer 2001
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The Contenders: Series 7 (June 2001: Cinema)
