Final Score (2018)

Direct-to-Video and On Demand movies, the ones that generally skip any major theatrical release, are more often than not rather terrible or at best bland. But a funny thing happens every so often, one tends to surprise. Final Score, albeit can get silly at times, was quite fun and entertaining. Dave Bautista plays Michael Knox, a former soldier visiting his “brother’s” widowed wife and daughter, Danni (LARA PEAKE), whose father was killed during a mission led by Knox. He’s come to take Danni to a football (soccer) game. Meanwhile, Arkady Belav (RAY STEVENSON) and his merry men of terrorists, infiltrate the stadium for the match. Belav learns that his brother, Dimitri (PIERCE BROSNAN), had faked his death 17 years earlier in order to stop the bloodshed during a revolution in the Russian state of Sakovya for independence. Arkady believes once the people see Dimitri alive, despite undergoing heavy plastic surgery to look a lot like Pierce Brosnan, will rise up and the revolution will be revitalized. Arkady and his crew have not only jammed signals so people inside cannot get use their cell phones, they have also rigged columns in the stadium with C4 explosives. Once Knox gets wind of what’s going on, he goes into action first to protect Danni and then take down Arkady, with the help of stadium attendant Faisal (AMIT SHAH), who knows the lay of the land. Brutal violence ensues. I don’t mind admitting, I genuinely enjoyed Final Score. It’s a movie that certainly had more than a few silly moments, most notably Knox riding a motorbike onto a heavy fabric roof along with some eye-rolling dialogue, one towards the end that reminded me of the “swing high” line in Signs. But even so, Dave Bautista has proven he does have enough charisma to carry a movie while Ray Stevenson, to no one’s surprise, does play an effective villain even when his character’s motives don’t seem to be well thought out. And finally Pierce Brosnan gets the prestigious “and” credit meaning he’s only in the film for a few minutes and minimal dialogue, but even so, seems to give it his best for such a limited part. As much as I liked Stevenson, kind of wish Brosnan played the villain here… Final Score was directed by Scott Mann who also helmed the dull film Heist from 2015 (which co-starred Bautista) but here the action was pretty well shot and even in the asinine moments, were still rather suspenseful. The script was written by “The Lynch Brothers” (David and Keith Lynch; both making their feature debuts) and Mann’s co-to man, Jonathan Frank who wrote Mara also for Saban Films. In the end, this is not some tremendous action-thriller and certainly does have shades of Die Hard, but even so, I was generally surprised considering the track record for these direct-to-video flicks that are more often than not, are terrible. This one, was actually pretty damn good.