Series 7: The Contenders

Series 7: The Contenders, is not a great film, but I found it eerily prescient. It was released in 2001, only a year after Survivor, the granddaddy of reality shows, debuted. Since then we've had shows with people competing to be everything from tattoo artists to weathermen. Why not a show in which contestants try to kill each other?

Suzanne Collins, who wrote The Hunger Games, said she was inspired by flipping channels and seeing Survivor and war footage from Afghanistan. But Hunger Games was published in 2008, and writer/director Daniel Minahan seems like Nostradamus when we see that his film has come close to predicting the future of television.

The premise of the film is that a TV show, with the blessing and cooperation of the government, features six people, their names drawn by their social security numbers. The reigning champion is Dawn Lagarto (Brooke Smith), a single, pregnant woman. She will face five new contenders (it seems a drawback that the winner must defend their title, which means they will either die or defend for the rest of their lives). The new contenders are an eighteen-year-old girl (Merrit Wever of Nurse Jackie fame), a middle-aged nurse, a crazy old man, an unemployed father of three, and a man with testicular cancer. He turns out to be Smith's old flame, when they were goths back in high school.

The idea is great, but I found the execution wanting. It's shot in video, like a TV station, with hushed and serious narration by Will Arnett. But I failed to see anyone employing any strategy. If you were in a game where someone was trying to kill you, would you continue to live at home, where anyone could find you? I admit I wondered what my strategy would be--would I go underground and wait it out, or would I be aggressive and try to take people out?

The film ends something like The Hunger Games does, with the two loves ending up needing to kill each other, or revolt from the game. The last shot is amusing, though.

Smith is a fine actress. She was Catherine Martin in The Silence of the Lambs, living in Buffalo Bill's basement hole. She was also a magnificent Sofia in Vanya on 42nd Street. She gives a terrific performance here, appearing to be a slovenly welfare queen on one hand, but possessing more heart and courage in private.

Series 7: The Contenders is a decent film, but it could have done a lot more with the subject, which is endless--the American thirst for violence and bad taste.