PLOT: An ex-soldier (Dave Bautista) attending a soccer (football) match with the daughter of a fallen comrade must use his skills to save the 35,000 attendees when a terrorist (Ray Stevenson) threatens to blow up the stadium.
REVIEW: DIE HARD in a football stadium…well…I guess it hasn’t been done before, right? The closest was probably SUDDEN DEATH, but that was a hockey arena, so I guess this is original as far as these things go. It’s basically a VOD thriller that’s elevated a bit by some flair shown by director Scott Mann, who did a nifty little action flick a few years ago called THE TOURNAMENT, and a better-than average cast.
It marks Dave Bautista’s first solo star vehicle and it benefits from the fact that Bautista, at this point, is pretty seasoned as an actor and is game to headline his own movie. Still, it’s undoubtedly a lower-rent action flick that makes an OK VOD watch, but really goes in one ear and out the other without leaving too much of an impression.
The hook isn’t bad, with Bautista the fish out of water, being a rough and tumble American soldier who hates soccer, doesn’t understand the crazy fandom behind it and is only at the game to bond with his late best friend’s young daughter, a spunky teen in trouble romancing a local hooligan.
It doesn’t take Bautista too long before he has to turn into John McClane and put paid to some pesky baddies, led by Ray Stevenson as the former head honcho of a failed revolution who’s bent on finding his thought-dead brother, who’s had plastic surgery and is hiding in the crowd. If you’ve looked at the cast list gracing the poster, you’ll know doubt guess who the brother turns out to be.
The action scenes are numerous but unexceptional, although Bautista is fun to watch in close contact scraps. There’s one really cool fight involving a deep frier that’s ultra brutal, and I like Mann’s quirky use of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes” to score the intro and a late action scene.
As for the supporting cast, Stevenson glowers with the best of them, while Amit Shah, as an overwhelmed security guy, makes for a good foil. More disappointing is the fact that the prominently billed Pierce Brosnan has little more than a cameo, and doesn’t get in on the action too much. It strikes me as the kind of role that was probably shot in a day or two and doesn’t add much to the film — although Brosnan never phones it in unlike certain A-listers who turn up in movies like this.
FINAL SCORE probably isn’t a bad choice for action fans eager to watch a lower-rent throwback to a simpler kind of action flick, although it lacks the energy to really make it a sleeper. It’s an ok B-level action film, but not all that much more.