Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good).

Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing”, this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town”) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the previously unrepentant arse-kicker accidentally kills someone in a fight and starts to feel remorse. It doesn’t always come off convincingly for a man who was quite clearly a brutal fucker with little evident humanity for most of “Last Man Standing” and not entirely a boy scout in “Redemption” either. However, Adkins delivers his best performance to date here (in his signature role) and credible or not, Boyka is still a fascinating character. Perhaps this was meant to be the last film and thus they had to speed the character progression up a bit. No matter what kind of conscience he may be developing, he’s still the ‘most complete fighter’ and enters the fights with supreme confidence and a certain arrogance. It’s after the fight is over that the tortured soul is evident.

Director Chapkanov is no Isaac Florentine, but he still manages to film the fights very well. He favours close-ups but not at the total rejection of wider establishing shots. Adkins is in his 40s now, but damn does he still bring it in the fights, as do his respective opponents, the biggest and baddest of which enters wearing a fucking “Mad Max”-Hannibal Lecter combo mask.

Although there may be issues of credibility, this is quite clearly the series’ most ambitious entry to date. Scott Adkins still proves to be the best action star Hollywood sleeps on, and the action is brutal and fun. It’s also got a touch of heart you didn’t find in the previous three films. A must for its target audience, this is the entry that should’ve been called “Redemption”, not the previous film. The screenplay is by David N. White (“Undisputed II: Last Man Standing”, “Undisputed III: Redemption”) from a story by producer Boaz Davidson (writer-director of “The Last American Virgin”, producer of several Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme films).

Rating: B-