Final Score ★★★
DIE Hard in a football stadium.
That’s the simple premise of Final Score, a 2018 action/thriller starring wrestling star Dave Bautista as an ex-soldier who finds himself in the middle of a terrorist plot during a European Cup final match.
Despite the fact it’s a straight-to-video release, Final Score is actually quite a decent actioner and, apart from a ridiculously over-the-top motorcycle stunt, doesn’t require constant suspension of disbelief.
Bautista is another of those American wrestlers who has also transitioned to cinema. Generally he’s the poor man’s Rock, but his role as Drax in the two Guardians of the Galaxy films suggested a comedy string could be added to his bow.
Time will tell, but for this film he is well and truly back in pure action mode with little or no humorous one-liners.
He plays Mike Knox, former special forces solider who is still feeling guilt for the death of a close friend. Each year he travels from the States to England to visit the man’s widow and his now teenage daughter.
Said 15-year-old Danni is now a bit of a rebel and has been grounded by her mother, but Mike convinces her to let him take her to the match between West Ham United and a Russian team at Upton Park Stadium.
The details of the match are important for two set-up reasons: Mike’s dead mate always used to take his daughter to West Ham games and amongst the crowd is an important person wanted by Russian terrorists.
The ruthless gang, whose leader is played well by regular ‘bad guy’ Irish actor Ray Stevenson, take over the stadium’s control room, lock the venue down, block all communications out and use computer software to search the faces in the crowd.
They have planted explosives under one section of the seating that will kill thousands of people as an insurance policy.
Of course ever-vigilant Mike Knox recognizes a few warning signs and before you know it he is single-handedly taking on the Russians in a series of well executed fist, knife and gun fights in familiar locations like lifts and kitchens.
There is a high-speed motorbike chase through the stadium concourse, which looks like at least part of it might have been real, and a decent climax.
Pierce Brosnan is barely in the film, but television actor Amit Shah makes an impression, providing the few lighter moments as stadium attendant Faisal who has to reluctantly help Knox.