Review: Final Score

Soccer-hating American Dave Bautista comes to the UK to visit his late brother’s family and take his niece to a football game. Said football game gets interrupted by Eastern European terrorists headed by Ray Stevenson. Stevenson is looking for his long-lost brother, who is in attendance but has begun a new life and has had his appearance altered by plastic surgery. If Stevenson doesn’t get what he wants, he will blow the stadium up. Standing in his way is Bautista, your standard Hollywood action movie military veteran bad arse who takes out Stevenson’s henchmen one by one, trying to save the day and his niece. Amit Shah plays a nervous stadium security guard who ends up aiding Bautista, whilst Ralph Brown is the copper, and Martyn Ford plays one of the more formidable henchmen Bautista gets to tangle with.

If you enjoyed the Van Damme “Die Hard” at an ice-hockey arena movie “Sudden Death”, here’s the Dave ‘Batista’ Bautista soccer stadium version (I won’t dare compare it to the 1977 John Frankenheimer terrorist thriller “Black Sunday”, plot similarities or not). I didn’t think “Sudden Death” was among JCVD’s best films but Powers Boothe’s villainy and the basic concept carried the film a certain way. This 2018 flick from director Scott Mann (“The Tournament”, “Bus 657” with Bautista) probably a hair below “Sudden Death”, but a decent time-waster, albeit one that wastes a better-than-usual cast for this kind of thing.

As the visiting American uncle who hates soccer (Given I’m calling it that instead of ‘football’ you can guess how I feel about the game), former WWE Superstar Dave Bautista is likeable, if lacking The Rock’s almighty charisma. It’s OK, very few wrestlers can compete with The Great One on that level, and he’s not much weaker as an actor than Mr. Dwayne Johnson, either. Even better, however is young Amit Shah as the hilariously nervous, geeky stadium security worker. He steals the entire film, which given the names on show here is no mean feat. Ray Stevenson is perhaps not as enjoyable as Powers Boothe in “Sudden Death” let alone Alan Rickman in “Die Hard”, but he’s a reliable villain. I liked how smart and prepared his character seems to be at the outset, even aware of security procedures/law enforcement protocols, so as to make things difficult for the authorities largely represented by Ralph Brown’s metro police Chief Commander. Brown’s solid in the part, but it’s not very demanding work, especially once Stevenson and Bautista are matched against one another. Pierce Brosnan’s name and face are prominently displayed on the film’s poster, but as Stevenson’s criminal brother turned soccer-loving English citizen, it’s a glorified cameo at best. Unlike fellow Bond actor Sean Connery in “The Hunt for Red October”, Brosnan actually puts on a foreign accent here. You may wish he hadn’t bothered, and don’t even get me started on what happens to his character here. I won’t spoil it, but it’s the most cornball bullshit you’ve ever heard of. On the plus side, the action here is pretty good, even if the kitchen fight somehow manages to rip-off both “Sudden Death” and that other “Die Hard” variant from the 90s, “Under Siege” (At one point he also writes down the terrorists names on his arm, ala Bruce Willis in “Die Hard”). Mind you, we get a hand chopped off this time, that was a nice little detail we didn’t get in the other films to my recollection. Another nice little difference? Hulking baldy Martyn Ford from “Boyka: Undisputed” as one of the more formidable henchmen. Bautista’s takedown of a burly and armed terrorist in a comparatively tin can-sized elevator is outstanding, aided by the idiot hilarity of poor Shah stuck in the middle of it all.

Shy of a total recommendation, this unoriginal time-waster is neither the best nor worst “Die Hard” variant. Scripted by The Lynch Brothers (whose background is in short filmmaking to this point) and  Jonathan Frank (“The Tournament”), you’ve seen it all before, you might not mind seeing it all over again in somewhat lesser circumstances, but probably won’t remember much afterwards.

Rating: C+