Turkey Shoot

Whilst we are in the season of remakes galore, i stumbled across this remake of the original turkey shoot. Whilst this movie does try to do good and stick to a well known story of person gets caught, person get sent to prison, corrupt officials put person into TV game show for ratings, it just feels well lacking. it does pay homage to some of the originals characters ie thatcher the main antagonist in the original and to actor steve railsback it also is showing the original playing on a TV actually in the movie but no where near as good. go see the original turkey shoot, very controversial and was an R20 when it came out and was extremely violent.

7.4 of 10. While not equivalent or parallel to the Hunger Games (it's something that could easily be happening now as opposed to sometime in the future), it does involve a reality TV game show with what modern society considers attractive media personalities where the participants are being hunted by each other, aka an "Elimination Game", all in a world where war is being heavily promoted and the show's primary heroes are vets.

The cast works well. Nobody seems obviously out of place. Available technology also is believable for a parallel Earth type of fiction.

Fortunately, it's not a film trying to setup sequels. It functions and wraps up nicely as a single, complete film. Unfortunately, there's a little too much equivalent of pro wrestling bullet dodging and inexhaustible bullet supplies at times.

First off the bat, I expected much more from this. Remakes tend to be much more glitzy and exciting, especially as far as horrors go, the remake of Straw Dogs, another example. What we have here is one mess of a film, which has heavily borrowed from The Running Man. The team behind the solid Indie crime flick, Redball, are back, where Hewitt, has just slumped lower after that weak sex flop, X. We even have some of the old players from the original. This does move in much different directions as the original, as the horrible Purcell, once part of the CIA, was framed and made to take the fall for slaughtering innocent civilians, women and children. Now a prisoner, he used in a game show, ala Running Man, minus the suspense and thrills. Surviving two stages, the best player, so far, of course, he's sprung from the show, by a former lover, work colleague (the hot Viva Bianca) which furthers the story. Just with Sound Of Music's recent passing of Liesel, (Hammond) who played Frederich, plays Thatcher, here, but with a different character, to that of G.P's Michael Craig, in the original. It's a fine performance, as with many here, (Bianca, McClory, donning a fantastic and polished American accent) except for our clunk head lead. There are a couple of gruesome bits, a head exploding scene, and a suicide one. It ends somewhat similar to that at the end of that 2001 movie, Series 7, but the whole film spells mess, disappointment, and some real crappy photography. The highlights of the film are our two over enthused hosts of our death survival show. Hopefully Hewitt, can one day, return to the kind of film making he did so wonderfully, with his baby, Redball, where here he's almost B grade, ground level.

The original Turkey Shoot is a fun Ozploitation film that rattles along at a fair pace and never seems to take itself too seriously. This remake is a po-faced turgid mess that is so badly directed even Uwe Boll would shake his head in disgust. Dominic Purcell can be good in the right role, but in this he looks downright ashamed to be here. And I don't blame him. The guy clearly needs a better agent. Long story short, he plays a wrongly convicted war criminal that is entered into a Running Man style TV show where he has 90 minutes to get to a destination whilst avoiding various assassins. And trust me that sounds far more exciting than it actually is. The film is a mess. The camera work is appalling, the direction is laughable, the script is infantile and there are huge chunks of narrative presumably missing. The action is badly filmed and choreographed, the characters are mere outlines and the acting ranges from poor to middling. Purcell himself seems half asleep. Not even worth a watch for curious fans of the original. Avoid like the plague.

Like a parody of Hunger Games parody, or utterly horrendous video game concept, Turkey Shoot is devastatingly unappealing. It doesn't even produce enough basic elements, such as decent editing or consistent plot. Furthermore, it tries to employ heavy core moral aspect with overly enthusiastic way beyond its incapable production. There's a slight gruesome action, though not well made and most likely won't even entertain fans, let alone casual viewers.

Rick Tyler (Dominic Purcell) is falsely convicted and then thrown into survival game for audiences' pleasure. Well, fake on-screen ones, certainly not real life audiences of normal people. There he must fight for his life and prove his innocence.

The movie tries to depict the redundancy of reality show with corny delivery like Hunger Games. However, it becomes actually unappealing. They repeated these faux news stereotype several times, and this is no doubt a torture to watch. It's not an overstatement that surviving this is as dangerous as playing the actual game.

With script and plot suffering with poor presentation, it relies heavily on the action, which will also disappoint. There's barely any continuation for the combat scenes. People would repeat the same motion as though they're lagging or the movie cut awkwardly and forget a few shots. You must have seen poor choreography where hits don't land, this movie takes it farther with random shots of random motion, then glue them together.

Even viewers with fortitude for cheap effect or story will waver. This is one game you would want to quit as soon as possible, or just don't start in the first place.