Bullet Points: Final Score

It has been more than thirty years since the world was gifted the action classic Die Hard. In addition to being awesome, Die Hard has what is quite possibly the most copied premise for an action movie of all-time.

But enough time has passed at this point that some of the original Die Hard clones are being cloned. Such is the case with 2018’s Final Score, which felt a whole lot like 1995’s Sudden Death, which of course felt a lot like Die Hard in a hockey arena.

Final Score moves the Die Hard-esque story from a hockey arena in Pittsburgh to a football stadium in London (or soccer stadium for us blokes in the States).

• Headline News: The opening credits of Final Score serve a dual purpose… the obvious purpose that opening credits serve every movie they are featured in and as a place to insert “news reports” to give us the backstory on the Belav brothers, the leaders of the revolution in their native Sakovya. Dimitri Belav is the charismatic politician. General Arkady Belav (Ray Stevenson, Accident Man) is the military mastermind behind the revolution. But things don’t work out for either brother… reports are that Dimitri was killed in a Russian air strike. Meanwhile after the death of his brother, Arkady was captured and thrown in prison.

• Hard Knox Life: We are introduced to the hero of the film, Mike Knox (Dave Bautista, Kickboxer: Vengeance), as he is arriving to London from the United States. Mike is in London visiting the wife and daughter of his friend Andy, a man who Mike served with in the Special Forces and a man Mike considered a brother. When Andy died on his watch, Mike made a promise he would look after Andy’s daughter Danni (Lara Peake). Despite not being a football fan (or as Mike so eloquently puts it “fucking soccer”) he has purchased two tickets for the European Cup Semi-Finals, so he could take Danni to the game just like her dad used to.

• Are You Ready For Some Football?: Unfortunately for Mike, Danni and 35,000 other spectators attending the game… the recently released from prison Arkady Belav plans on attending the game too and he doesn’t even have a ticket! Arkady and his group of terrorists that include the prototypical evil chick in the form of Tatiana (Alexandra Dinu) and her monstrous lover Vlad (Martyn Ford, The Marine 6: Close Quarters) have an evil plan to lockdown the stadium and hold everyone in it hostage until the authorities hand over Arkady’s brother Dimitri… that’s right, the reports that Dimitri Belav died in an air strike were fabricated. Dimitri, seeing the rising body count in the Sakovya Revolution cut a deal to fake his death and go into hiding so the bloodshed of his people would stop and peace could be restored. Dimitri had extensive plastic surgery to make him look a lot like a bearded Pierce Brosnan, which is good because Dimitri was played by a bearded Pierce Brosnan. After getting out of prison, Arkady learned that his brother was still alive and also learned that Dimitri would be attending the European Cup Semi-Finals… and it is there that Arkady decides he is going to get his brother back, presumably to restart the Sakovya Revolution OR to kill his brother for being a traitor to their cause.

• Die Hard in a Football Stadium: After the rebellious teenager Danni ditches her Uncle Mike to spend some time with her boyfriend, who was attending the game with some of his school chums… Mike goes looking for Danni in the huge stadium with the help of an usher named Faisel (Amit Shah). And that’s about the time Mike and Faisel start to figure out something is not quite right at the stadium… cell phones aren’t working, the exit doors are all locked and the security control room is ignoring all incoming communiques. Mike and Faisel decide to pay the control room a visit… but they never quite make it. There is an awesome fight in the elevator that goes up to the control room between Mike and one of Arkady’s terrorists… that ends with Mike running a play straight out of the Die Hard playbook and taking out his first terrorist.

What follows is exactly what you’d expect… Mike takes out more of the bad guys one by one and Arkady gets to Danni before Mike and uses the girl Mike swore to look after as a pawn in his evil game. But there were also some things I did not expect, like the whole motorcycle chase through the stadium concourse that ends up on the roof!

If I had to give Final Score a final score, I’d give it a solid 7.25 out of 10… yes the story has been done before, but Final Score executed the story well. Dave Bautista continues to impress me as his acting career progresses and there’s no doubt that Ray Stevenson makes for a top notch villain.

Now for the final portion of this Final Score review, some Bonus Bullet Points…

• If You Ever: …wanted to see Dave Bautista deep fry a guy’s fingers, then this is the movie for you.
• The New Val Verde?: Sakovya, the home of the Belav brothers, is a fictional place… but I can’t help but think it was inspired by the fictional country of Sokovia as seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• Favorite Quote: “Police don’t leave dead body in toilet cubicle.”
• MVP: The Faisel character to me was the unexpected surprise in this movie. Faisel ends up becoming Mike’s sidekick and he really rises to the occasion… when it would have been much easier to run and hide.
• Movie Magic: I am by no means a soccer/football enthusiast, but from some of the comments I’ve read there is no way in hell West Ham would ever actually make it to the semi-finals.