Ring of Death starts as disgraced ex cop Burke Wyatt (Johnny Messner) is approached by his ex partner Rapper (Jawara) who now works for the FBI & has a deal for Burke, in exchange for Burke going undercover Rapper says that the FBI are willing to set up a trust fund for his young son & give him a job. Burke agrees & Rapper briefs him, Burke has to go undercover into Cainsville state prison which the FBI are investigating due to the high fatality rate there. Burke will go undercover & be treated like any other inmate, Burke has been chosen because he is an ex marine fighter & the FBI suspect that Golan (Stacy Keach) the corrupt warden is staging illegal fights between the inmates & broadcasting them online & making a mint from the frenzied betting. Burke is alone once he gets to Cainsville & must survive the other inmates who take a dislike to him as well as the sadistic warden & the vicious prison guards while taking part in the fighting tournament...
Directed by Bradford May this made for television action thriller apparently had the working title Death Match & was actually a lot better than I expected it to be, don't get me wrong as Ring of Death is no masterpiece but for what it is & what it sets out to be this ain't half bad. The script is a collection of over used ideas & clichés like the ex cop hero, an undercover agent going into prison to infiltrate criminal activity, a corrupt warden & vicious guard's, the underground fighting tournament, the online broadcast for huge profit & the one super fighter who the good guy must fight in order to win. The script is fairly predictable, it holds no great surprises but at a brisk 80 odd minutes it keeps moving along at a decent pace, there's just enough fighting & just enough character development & plot to make it worthwhile & give the character's some life & personality. It's unclear as to why the FBI can't pin the crime on warden Golan since he has been broadcasting the fights all over the internet & from an official point of view nobody but Rapper seems to know about Burke which is surely a precarious situation as if something happened to Rapper his mate Burke would be screwed. The ending is also a little random as warden Golan himself jumps into the ring to take Burke on in a somewhat pointless exercise, if I were him I would be too busy getting away before I was arrested.
One strong aspect of Ring of Death is the fight scenes which are actually quite well staged & suitably brutal if a little short. Ring of Death isn't the type of action film where people can take all sorts of punishment & keep on going, when someone gets punched here they bleed, they go down & actually look hurt. The fights are quite bloody with lots of spurting blood, there's a also a cool scene when some barb wire gets thrown into the arena & a guy wraps it around his hand to use as a weapon. There's also a brief if alright car chase where it seems like the makers weren't allowed to damage the cars as even though they bump into each other the cars never show any sort of damage. The production values are good & it looks like this was filmed in a real prison, for those interested there's a fair bit of female nudity too as all the rich & powerful men like to hang around topless girls while the warden generously puts on a lesbian show between three babes for the inmates.
Probably shot on a low budget Ring of Death actually looks rather nice, it certainly doesn't look like a cheap made for television action film. The acting is alright, no-one is going to win any awards but no-one embarrasses themselves either. Veteran actor Stacy Keach looks rather flabby & bored & we never find out why he has a bad eye.
Ring of Death was much better than I had expected, it has good production values & surprisingly good fight scenes which are very violent & bloody if a little short. A solid, if predictable, plot & a reasonable cast also help make Ring of Death worth a watch.
