it's a knockout.

It's a little known fact outside Take A Break Magazine that every seven years, thirty of the world’s best (and sexiest) assassins all descend upon an unsuspecting town somewhere to spend twenty-four hours drinking, smoking and trying to kill each other.

To death.

And the point of it all is?

Well The last contestant standing receives a whooping $10 million cash prize, a fridge freezer, a lifetimes supply of Cheese Strings and the title of Top Assassin ever.

Well until the next meeting obviously.

Betting on the outcome is a group of mysterious billionaires (with wobbly man tits as big as their wallets) who watch the entire proceedings on a wall of shiny widescreen teevee's in a smoke and whore filled room whilst professional Oirishman and sexy bugger Liam Cunningham keeps everyone up to date with the scores, the weather reports and impromptu impressions of 1970's celebrities.

Welcome my friends to...

The Tournament (2009).
Dir: Scott Mann.
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Kelly Hu, Ian Somerhalder, Liam Cunningham, Ving Rhames, Sébastien Foucan and Scott Adkins.

"What's the matter, Mr. Harlow? Are you out of bullets? Why, here, have some of mine!"

...Which this time around is being brought to you live from the glamourous northern town of Middlesbrough, the birthplace of such fantastic celebrities as Chris Rea, Journey South, magician Paul Daniels and Over the Rainbow quarter-finalist Jessica Robinson.

Tho' the thing that sums up the town best is that it's twinned with Dunkirk.

Which means that any mayhem and destruction that's caused during the competition will almost certainly go unnoticed.

Journey South: That'll be up the shitter then.

Just to make absolutely sure tho' the town’s phone lines have been re-routed to prevent calls to the emergency services and just to make sure that the investors get their moneys worth (and experience all the action) every CCTV camera has been hi-jacked for use by the tournament.

If that wasn't enough, every contestant has had a pesky flashing tracker device surgically implanted under their skin so that not only can the tournament’s organizers follow their every move but so can their opponents.

It's a wee bit like that old ITV show gameshow Interceptor but without former tennis goddess Annabel Croft's fantastic arse or an annoying fucker from Bellshill running around brandishing a toy gun and acting the hard man.

Robert Carlyle, as we all know, is from Maryhill.

Tho' he does at one point brandish a gun.

Any other similarities are up to you.

Me?

I quite like the bloke, plus he occasionally shops in my local Sainsbury and looks like he can handle himself.

I'm not stupid.

Carlyle: Handy.

But I digress.

Anyway, a tournament of such ferocity is nothing without the right contestants and the latest seems to be the best mix yet.

There's the cutesy Chinese killing machine with a mysterious past, Lai Lai Zhen  (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan's Hu); badass mofo Joshua Harlow (Rhames, taking a break from murdering Romero remakes) the games previous champion on a mission to discover who killed his wife, Anton Bogart (stuntman turned actor Foucan) the parkour obsessed Frenchman and the dog murdering Texan Miles Slade (Somerhalder from teevee's Lost) as well as a motley assortment of bearded Russian's, tubby Chinamen and a variety of Etchasketch villains in market stall hoodies.

Oh yes, and a drunken Catholic priest Father MacAvoy (Carlyle playing, well Robert Carlyle but that's no bad thing), suffering from a crisis of faith who accidentally digests one of the trackers whilst trying to sober up after a particularly heavy night on the slash.

Hu: Would.

Cue 90 minutes of shootouts, hotel room finger removals, a fist fight in a church that culminates in a grenade throwing match, a gunfight in a stripclub and a ludicrously enjoyable climax which pits Carlyle's bus stealing vicar and Hu's sweaty cleavage against an indestructible Ving Rhames on a glamourous sliproad just off the M28.

And all this whilst a skinny French bloke bounces his way around a drizzly Middlesbrough like a crack fuelled Tigga and the predominantly Brit cast chew gum and pretend to be American.

Yes I'm looking at you Andy Nyman.

C'mon, what's not to love?

"Shite in mah mooth or pish in mah bottle?"

True the whole thing is utterly ridiculous from beginning to end with plot holes big enough to drive the aforementioned bus thru' but when a movie is this much fun does it really matter?

And who'd have thought that after some of the abysmal shite that's come out of the UK in the last few years (Kill List, Little Deaths, The Children and the rest) that it'd be an ex-director of teevee's Stars in Their Eyes that would end up the saviour of British cinema?

Scott Mann, we salute you.

Cunningham: Happy days.

Yes, I know The Tournament might not be the most original movie ever made (and I reckon the cast and crew are aware of this too) but if you crack open a beer or two and let yourself go with the flow you'll be rewarded with an hour and a half of nicely choreographed ultra-violence, some strong all round performances, some great stunt work and the added thrill of gazing whistfully at Kelly Hu's luxurious hair.

What more could you ask for?

On second thoughts don't answer that.