Series 7: The Contenders
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| Series 7: The Contenders | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Daniel Minahan |
| Produced by | Jason Kliot Katie Roumel Christine Vachon Joana Vicente |
| Written by | Daniel Minahan |
| Starring | Brooke Smith Glenn Fitzgerald Mary Louise Burke Richard Venture Michael Kaycheck Merritt Wever Susan Shopmaker |
| Music by | Girls Against Boys |
| Cinematography | Randy Drummond |
| Editing by | Malcolm Jamieson |
| Distributed by | Film4 |
| Running time | 87 mins |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Series 7: The Contenders is a 2001 film directed by Daniel Minahan. The movie is presented as a marathon of the seventh series of an American reality TV game show called The Contenders, and is a highly dark satire on the Reality Television culture. It stars Brooke Smith as Dawn, the reigning champion from the sixth series.
Series 7 has themes in similar with the films Battle Royale and The Running Man.
[edit] Plot
Five contestants are selected from a city in a seemingly random lottery and the winner of the previous series travels to the town to make a total of six contestants. Each series of The Contenders is played within the limits of a chosen city or town. Contestants are provided with a gun, though they may acquire other weapons, and the last one left alive after killing all the other contestants is the winner. The winner of each series must then go on to the next series and will only gain his or her freedom after surviving 3 series. Participants are followed around by a camera crew and their exploits are broadcast on national television.
Series 7 is set in Newbury, Connecticut which happens to be the hometown of Dawn Lagarto, the current and longest reigning champion, which she had left 15 years ago. Dawn also happens to be pregnant and due within the week.
The 5 new "contenders" are:
- Connie Trabucco - 57 years old, single, emergency room nurse.
- Jeffrey Norman - 33 years old, married, artist. He is dying of testicular cancer.
- Anthony Reilly - 39 years old, married, unemployed. He had been an asbestos remover, but he was laid off and has had trouble supporting his family.
- Franklin James - 72 years old, retired. He is very distrustful of the government and his home is covered in tin-foil.
- Lindsey Berns - 18 years old, student.
The story purposefully leaves many key details unexplained or half-alluded to, because the viewer is supposed to be watching only what the creators of the show actually aired in the fictional TV show, almost certainly after heavy editing. It is not explained how the reality TV show got into such a powerful a position that it could randomly select people to be killed, but all the "contestants" seem to treat it as something they have absolutely no control over.
The "show" begins with a recap of the end of Series 6; the opening scene is of the heavily-pregnant Dawn walking into a convenience store, fatally shooting a man in what seems like a shocking random act, then walking out (but not before asking the cashier if the store had any bean dip, which they didn't). The credits then roll and the rules of the TV show are explained, and the "contenders" are introduced. Anthony tries to run away, but with the help of the police he is forcibly brought back and then accepts the finality of "competing". When he's handed his gun, Jeffrey tries to shoot himself and has to be restrained. Viewers gradually know the characters better through interview segments interspersed with several of the "contenders" early attempts to attack each other (none succeed).
The terminally ill Jeffrey tries to commit suicide, assisted by his wife, to be free of his pain (he tries to just ignore the TV show as he was already planning to kill himself). Jeffrey and Dawn were high school sweethearts, but Dawn got pregnant and had to have an abortion; they broke up, and Dawn dropped out of school and lost contact with her family. Their breakup was also due to the fact that around this time Jeffrey decided that he was a homosexual (though apparently some time before the show takes place he either reversed this realization, or is living in denial, because he's married to a woman now). When Jeffrey sneaks away from the camera crew and with his wife tries to quietly commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, the camera crew races in and has his stomach pumped. Frustrated over this and increasing pressure from the TV show, his wife leaves him.
The first to be killed is Anthony; he is badly injured in an attack when he's said to have held his infant child at knifepoint (though visually, he's threatening his own suicide) and is rushed to a hospital, where he is conscious but is (according to the narration) "bedridden". In fact, he is tied to the bed and Connie is informed of his position. Connie then sneaks into the hospital and ruthlessly gives him a lethal injection, while he is screaming at her for killing a helpless unarmed man like a rat in a cage. After Anthony is killed, every contestant gets a mysterious note saying that some unknown party wants to help them escape the game, and that they should meet at the shopping mall. However, it's really just a trick by Connie to lure them all there.
Lindsey shows up with her parents, and they split up to search for their mysterious benefactor. Lindsey is standing on a second floor bridge in an open-air area of the mall, while her parents are below, and she signals to them that she sees no one. However, Franklin then sneaks up behind her at hits her over the head with his cane. Franklin proceeds to bludgeon the unconscious Lindsey to death with his cane, as her horrified parents scream below as her blood flies everywhere. After finishing, Franklin shouts to everyone (and the cameras) that he "knows that this whole thing is a lie, they've been tricking us..." but before he can make his revelation, Connie shoots him with a sniper rifle from the other side of the mall. Again, the viewer never finds out what he was actually talking about (what aren't they telling us? Is there a resistance movement? Is some even more sinister force controlling the TV show?).
Dawn tracks down Connie at her home but suddenly goes into labor and gives birth, with the reluctant assistance from Connie. Connie then visits Jeffrey in his hospital room in the hopes of giving him a lethal injection also, but he succeeds in overpowering and shooting her. Then it's down to just Dawn and her former love Jeffrey. Unfortunately, because of the rules of the game, the show forcibly takes away Dawn's newborn daughter minutes after she is born, and say they won't give her back until she's "won" by killing Jeffrey. They realize they both still have feelings for each other and don't want to have to do this, but are still compeled to face each other. Jeffrey, because he's still suicidal, Dawn because she wants her baby back.
However, at the last minute they turn on the camera crew and go on the run to try to get Dawn's baby back. What happens next is up to the viewer's interpretation: the "real" camera crew wasn't able to follow them, so nothing that happens in the movie after this point was supposedly caught on film. We're informed that after this Dawn and Jeffrey take a movie theater hostage, and are surrounded by police and reality TV personnel.
We're then told by a narrator that what we see next on the "show" is a "dramatic re-enactment of what happened"; actors playing Dawn and Jeffrey when a "spokesman for the show" enters unarmed and makes them a reasonable offer. After a cliched dramatic scene, Jeffrey's wife reappears and shoots Dawn, saying she still loves him. Jeff, seeing Dawn killed right in front of him, attempts suicide. The last shot of the film is of a commercial for "Series 8" which announces that the winner of Season 7 will be returning; we see a shot but not mortally wounded Jeffrey waking up in a hospital bed after life-saving surgery, and cursing.
The ending, however, is open to interpretation; we don't know exactly what happened in the climactic scene, and for all the audience knows it's probably a script written by the propaganda department of the reality TV show (the entire scene shows the pair as acting irrationally, and lionizes the TV series). However, an alternate ending found in the deleted scenes on the DVD presents what might be the real conclusion to Series 7: Dawn and Jeff drop their weapons and flee the theater, but are surrounded by angry fans, displeased at the anti-climatic conclusion of the standoff, and are beaten savagely before they can escape. The movie ends showing Jeff alive in the hospital.
[edit] Technical Details
- Writing Details: Daniel Minahan
- Original Music: Robbie Kondor, Girls Against Boys
- Release Date: 1 June 2001, (
United Kingdom) 20 January 2001, (Sundance film festival) (
United States) - Runtime: 86 mins
- Aspect Ratio: 1.78 : 1
- BBFC Rating: 18
- MPAA Rating: R
