1990s R-Rated Gonzo Football Action Movie Rediscovered And Restored

Cult aficionados may know veteran Italian filmmaker and The Last Match director Fabrizio De Angelis from films he’s produced and/or directed like Killer Crocodile, The Manhunt, or his six Karate Warrior features. 

An explosive narrative, to say the least, De Angelis’s The Last Match gets started with a dire predicament, before graduating to a genuinely insane action extravaganza. 

The film’s inciting incident might seem standard fare: football star Cliff Gaylor (Oliver Tobias) must save his wrongfully imprisoned daughter from a Caribean jail, where she languishes under the watchful eye of a ruthless warden (Henry Silva). Gaylor turns to a local lawyer in a desperate battle against time and bureaucracy and is entirely failed by the American Consulate (Charlie Napier), dismissing the matter. Just as woefully, the lawyer is only interested in lining his pockets and could care less about saving the football player’s daughter

Thus, Gaylor must play “the last match”—a daring rescue mission in which our hero’s entire team dons football gear and rushes into harm’s way, guns a-plenty and a-blazing. It’s a strange marriage of Taken, Scarface, and something even more bizarre: a wonderfully goofy, unique cult-film committed ultimately to its spectacle of men in football helmets blasting guns and firing rocket launchers. 

There’s something wonderfully earnest about the audacious blend of drama and action. De Angelis transforms a typical action-flick scenario—a father’s fight for his daughter’s freedom—into an outrageously action-packed, all-out war. For many, the ridiculous highlight of the film is Gaylor’s coach spurring the rest of the team, literally clothed in football pads and jerseys, to destroy an array of helicopters in mid-air. 

The Last Match’s restoration from the original camera negative into an impressive 4K testifies to its enduring appeal, particularly for cinema nerds. The restoration features 1080p with English audio and optional English SDH subtitles. 

The juicy extras include a 16-minute interview with special effects artist Roberto Ricci, plus a 29-minute documentary by the director of EUROCRIME!, Mike Malloy, on the fascinating subject of American actors in the waning days of Italian cinema. That’s not all: look out for a 17-minute video essay by Italian film expert Eugenio Ercolani for the real cinema heads. 

This true-blue collector’s edition of The Last Match won’t run more than 1,500 copies. If you’re keen on possessing its added double-sided poster, the reversible Blu-ray wrap sporting alternate artwork, and the slipcase featuring the original artwork, it’s a good idea to order soon.

The movie serves as a nice sidenote to the absurdly inventive era of early ‘90s action. After all, it wasn’t just Quentin Tarantino (whose western, The Hateful Eight, can be streamed on Netflix now) injecting new life into the genre. Others, like De Angelis, were revolutionizing action just as much.

Source: Cauldron Films