Refém do Jogo

Bautista takes his beloved niece to a football match and has to stop terrorists blowing the place up.

Ok, so this is absolute nonsense and if you started looking for plot holes you'd never see the film. However, Bautista has presence, the action scenes are well put together, the villains are nasty and the climax impressive given the budget.

You could do a lot worse with a beer on a Friday night

As a Briton, after seeing the trailer for this, I thought it'd be brilliant to see a bunch of football fans blown up. So I watched it the day it was released. I'm also a Drax fan, played by Dave Bautista, who also headlines this movie as a humble-but-hard ex-Army soldier visiting the UK to see his niece and sister-in-law. His brother died in action. The movie is reminiscent of Die Hard, and also Sudden Impact, of course, which it was clearly inspired by (to his credit, and no surprise, Dave Bautista is as enjoyable a lead as prime-era JCVD). I liked his sidekick, a wimpy Brixton-born Arab, who at the beginning of the film an old woman assumes is a terrorist (there is a great 2-in-a-row pay-off to this scene near the end of the film). In the last 10 mins, the story has a few implausible beats (mostly after the end result of the terrorist's actions), I think the screenwriters had written the main action of the film, and resorted to 'the numbers' in wrapping up, but I liked it, it was better than you'd expect. There is a bike chase sequence where I would've chosen subtly different shots, but the Director is quite good overall. Also, for Brits, look out for the Irish-accented supporting role by a star of the British "Shameless"! For Americans, for Brits, for soccer fans world-wide, watch this film. It's pretty great overall, given it's modest budget of $20 million - they got a lot for their money. May Dave Bautista do more British productions...

"Final Score" is exactly what you expect it to be, and a bit more. The story is tight and simple, and the pace of action is fast. The idea of taking hostage a whole stadium of football fans is both current and real. In fact, making a film about it might seem as a safety valve as it will hopefully discourage anyone wanting to implement such a plan.

The added quality of the film is Amit Shah as Faisal, a bit clumsy, but extremely nice chap. He makes a fantastic Laurel to Dave Bautista's Hardy. That is if you take the film tongue-in-cheek. Bautista is, however, well cast. He's a charming big man with enough authority to convince the audience (and Ray Stevenson's villainous character!) that you don't mess with former US Army men.

Pierce Brosnan, fully bearded for "The Son", has a cameo role. It's always nice to see a household name supporting small films like this. Enjoy.

For action fans it's a winner. Hot pacing and action. No "Arty-farty" plot. Just straight up no mixer. No goofy politics. Just good vs bad. And lots of action.

Enjouy.

No offence to the big man, who I think is actually a good actor and plays to his strengths, but usually any film with a Wrestler as the lead I'm not watching ( minus the Rock ) But this works, it is what it is and doesn't try to be anything different..

Give it your time and you'll not be wasting it