A bone-crunching actioner that spent years on the shelf just to bomb anyway finally emerges victorious on Netflix

If you’ve seen one dystopian action movie that features a band of disparate characters forced to battle against the odds and emerge victorious in a vicious fight to the death, then you’ve seen ’em all. Or at least, it’ll feel that way if you’re one of the many Netflix subscribers to have taken a chance on The Tournament.

Per FlixPatrol, the forgotten 2009 neck-snapper has ended up as one of the most-watched movies on the worldwide watch-list, close to a decade and a half after being released to little more than a shrug of indifference. Shooting initially wrapped in the summer of 2007, but due to financing and distribution issues, it wouldn’t be until October 2009 that audiences had the chance to see it for themselves.

Unfortunately, they didn’t seem interested in the opportunity given that The Tournament could only cobble together $493,000 on an $8 million budget, but Netflix often proves to be a safe haven for under-the-radar ass-kicking escapades that boast at least a smattering of recognizable names and faces.

That’s very much true in the case of director Scott Mann’s feature-length debut, which ropes in Robert Carlyle, Scott Adkins, Kelly Hu, Ving Rhames, Liam Cunningham, and many more in addition to tell the story of a secret competition funded by some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful elites, which pits a ragtag group of participants in a battle to the death, with the last person standing netting a substantial cash prize.

There are a few good sequences peppered throughout, but not enough for The Tournament to sniff cult classic status, even if a new lease of life on streaming is an acceptable substitute.