Several years ago, I was in a small movie rental place specializing in independent, “artsy” and obscure films. A friend and I saw a movie that looked interesting, but my friend didn’t want to rent it because he thought it seemed too depressing. I, on the other hand, was intrigued, but I figured I’d come back some other time and rent it by myself. Of course, I totally forgot about it…until now. And now I can’t for the life of me remember what the hell it was called.
Here’s what it was about, at least from reading the DVD case. It was about some dystopian scenario in the near future where some convicts would be “freed” into a rugged wilderness area, rather than be executed. If they could reach the other side of the wilderness, they would be granted their freedom.
The catch was, they were being pursued by some sort of special-forces soldiers, as part of the latter’s training. So not only did they have to be able to make it across the wilderness and survive off the land, they were also being hunted down by these commandos. It was like the convicts trying to escape to freedom were basically just practice targets for the military’s training, or something.
From what I can remember, this movie was fairly recent. I know there are probably many other dystopian type movies, made in the late 70s or 80s, with this same type of theme, but I’m pretty sure this one was made within the past 5 years. Also, it was an independent film, not a B-movie but a film made specifically to be “edgy” and different. I think most of the actors playing the prisoners were pretty young, like in their 20s. And I want to say that the movie won some kind of film-festival award, too, although I’m not sure.
I feel like the title was something cheesy sounding, like “Death Game” or “Murder Zone” or something like that. And it may have had some numbers in the title too, although I’m not sure.
Does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about?