Review: Final Score

There are some films that one can't truly call great but are nonetheless unpolished gems. Final Score is such purely enjoyable popcorn flick well worth one's time, and one that continues to demonstrate that Dave Bautista is a bona fide action star that is also very capable when it comes to handling both comedy and drama. This is nothing new, of course, as his breakthrough turn as Drax in Guardians of the Galaxy has proved, but it is worth repeating as not all action stars are as well-rounded.

Bautista stars as Mike Knox, a Special Forces veteran visiting London for the 16th time to check in on Rachel (Lucy Gaskell) and Danni (Lara Peake), the widow and teenage daughter of a mate who died on the battlefield under his watch. Mike still carries the burden of guilt after all this time, though Rachel assures him that her husband's death was in no way his fault and that he should move on with his life. Whilst he's in town, he decides to surprise Danni with two tickets to the European Cup semi-final between West Ham and Russia. Unfortunately, this is the very same event that brutal general Arkady (Ray Stevenson) and his crew have targeted.

Arkady, as the opening newsreel montage breezily and effectively conveys, was, along with his charismatic politician brother Dmitri, the leading figureheads behind the bloody revolution in the fictional Russian state of Sukovia. Dmitri ended up being killed in an air strike, whilst Arkady was captured. Seventeen years later, Arkady believes that his brother is still alive and in hiding and he has locked down the football stadium and wired it with explosives in order to force the government to hand over his wayward brother. Unbeknownst to the 35,000 fans in attendance, their lives are in imminent danger and the only one who can foil Arkady's dastardly plan is Danni's Uncle Mike.

As in Die Hard, of which Final Score is an unabashed rip-off, Mike gets by with a little help from some unlikely friends. One is wisecracking stadium employee Faisal (Amit Shah) who, in one hilarious moment, pretends to be a terrorist in order to grab the crowd's attention; the other is police commander Steed (Ralph Brown), who does what he can to keep the situation under control whilst outside the arena. Yet this is Bautista's show all the way and director Scott Mann wastes little time in staging some fantastic fight sequences to showcase him to full effect, whether it be Mike battling one of Arkady's goons in the narrow confines of an elevator as a panicked Faisal does his best to stay out of harm's way, or a wonderfully ridiculous motorcycle chase through the inside of the stadium that climaxes in Mike daring a leap for a 60-foot drop.

Then there's Mike's showdown with the hulking Vlad (Martyn Ford). It's pretty difficult to make Bautista look like a garden gnome but the 6'8" bodybuilder certainly does that as he throws Bautista about like a rag doll. How Mike survives the assault and bests his opponent is pretty nifty, and another prime example of Mann's facility in executing graphically violent but coherent set pieces. Final Score is thoroughly escapist fare, silly without being stupid, thrilling without being tiresome, and hellbent on showing viewers nothing but a good time. Mission accomplished.

Final Score

Directed by: Scott Mann

Written by: Jonathan Frank, David T. Lynch, Keith Lynch

Starring: Dave Bautista, Pierce Brosnan, Ray Stevenson, Amit Shah, Ralph Brown, Alexandra Dinu, Trevor Poole, Lara Peake, Lucy Gaskell, Martyn Ford