This is the kind of movie that you can not take seriously and that is a good thing. I am a huge Bas Rutten fan and bought it for the sole purpose of seeing him in action. The movie has its share of good moments, bad moments and "Why Bas why?" moments.
First, the good. Bas Rutten is perfect in this movie. The plot is not terrible, very straight forward but has its twists along the way. Is it predictable? Yes but you have to take this movie as what it is, not a Steven Speilberg epic but an action movie made to push Bas' career and it does that well. The action sequences are good too, made better by Bas using MMA (armbars, chokes and my favorite, a spinning kneebar from guard!) which were my favorite moments in the movie.
The bad. The rest of the acting is not so great. Very one dimensional characters, but that is the nature of this kind of movie. The actors did their best with what they were given.
The ugly. First, this DVD is not widescreen format. However, the film was shot widescreen and not reformatted to fit normal screens. So in the process alot of parts get cut off by the screen. It makes this movies production vales seem worse than they are. And they are bad to begin with, constant re use of footage of soldiers, skies and landscapes.
If you buy this movie, get it to have fun and enjoy Bas. His fighting is great and he has an awesome love scene with one of the actresses (Bas takes what he wants!). It is the kind of movie to watch with friends and have fun.

Though `The Eliminator' (2004) can hardly be called an A-Class action flick, it is benefited by the presence of two actors - one is always underrated Michael Rooker ('The 6th Day'), and the other is Bas Rutten, Dutch fighter of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). At least Michael Rooker can act, and Rutten can fight like a real fighter, and his acting is not bad.

The plot is yet another retread of `The Most Dangerous Game.' (If you haven't seen this 1932 film, imagine a John Woo film `Hard Target.') It is about Rutten's character Dakota Varley, who is kidnapped and brought to the island to join a deadly game of cat and mouse. He and six other contestants are nightly hunted by men with rifle, and only the last man standing gets the reward of $10,000,000.

Michael Rooker plays (don't say again) rich and sadistic villain and organizer of the game. Though he is often typecast as baddie, he can show a much wider range of acting than is generally believed (see `The Replicant' or `Here on Earth'), but here he is strictly confined in a mold of a theatrical villain, without humor or anything special. The other actors are not particularly great though Paul Logan is slightly better than the rest of them, showing unexpectedly convincing portrait of rapport with Rutten's hero.

[ACTIONS ... NOT GREAT] But what we need is action, and action scenes of `The Eliminator' clearly need more money. From the opening lame, unexciting boat race, most of the actions fail to deliver the thrills and excitement, and though the fighting scenes of Bas Rutten are pretty good, they are buried among the weak script and inept direction that only gets worse as the film goes on. Apparently the island is much bigger than Manhattan, but the good guys can find a "secret passage" without even searching it.

As for the actions, `The Eliminator' deserves two stars or less, but I find Bas Rutten is good if not as good as The Rock and other action stars. He has made a promising debut, but the film itself is a letdown.

If you love action, this movie is for you. The movie stars Bas Rutten of Pride Fighting Championship fame. Nuff said.

Btw, Mr Snub. The Mexican that you refer to is the legendary Marco Ruas. The trainer of UFC fighter, Pedro "The Rock" Rizzo. And he's Brazilian. Lol!

Filled with kinetic Matrix-like camera shots and tons of time lapse sky photography, THE ELIMINATOR is another one of those fight to the death movies we've been besieged with over the years. In this one, for some reason, bad guy Michael Rooker (in a delightfully fiendish performance) recruits big bad Bas Rutten to participate in a fight to the death survival game on a remote island. Other rich people have assembled their own warriors to escape execution from the guards on the island. There aren't many surprises in the film, but Rutten is such an amiable giant that one can't help but root for him. Paul Logan (Ultimate Fight) is along as a warrior who forms an alliance with Rutten to get off the island. There's also a couple of inanely enjoyable shots of a bullet slicing through the air that is campy enough to be artistic. Nothing new or exciting, but THE ELIMINATOR is passable entertainment.

Former UFC Champion Bas Rutten has his years of expertise in Tae Kwon Do, Kyushkin Karate, Muy Thai, and submission techniques on full display in THE ELIMINATOR (originally called VARLEY'S GAME.)

Rutten and six other martial arts experts are kidnapped and brought to a remote island, where they are told that they will be hunted everyday from sundown til sunrise until only one is left alive. The fighters start to turn on each other, killing each other to improve their odds, but Varley (Bas Rutten) forms an alliance with Jesse (Paul Logan) to escape the island.

The picture quality is so-so. MTI has made a slight improvement on the BLACK NINJA cinematography wise, but it still could be better.

The fights are well choreographed, but occassional have too much speed-ups and other flashy camera-moves that comprimes a few scenes (It totaly ruins the final fight sequence) but, it's great to see that mostly, this does not show, and two great fights appear prominently, the first, between Varley and a Mexican fighter, and another wet-and-wild duel between Varley and a face-d painted serial killer.

All of this ELIMINATEs the ELIMINATOR's ocassinal bad camera work and made it worth viewing for action fans.