Mark Reviews Movies: A SCORE TO SETTLE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 1, 2019

It's always frustrating when you figure out the major twist of a story before it's revealed. It's especially irritating when you figure it out almost immediately, but it's a special kind of annoyance when the filmmakers seem to go out of their way to telegraph a plot's twist. A Score to Settle falls into that last description and goes even further than that—giving away the game early and often.

Of course, that shouldn't matter, because, while a twist may re-contextualize or redefine a story, the telling of the story is what's important. Here, we get a simultaneously overblown and tedious revenge thriller, as the lead character wastes a lot of time doing nothing of much value in between spurts of violent vengeance. Screenwriter John Newman and director Shawn Ku appear to believe that they've made a subversive kind of revenge story, in which the revenge is secondary and the results aren't worth the effort. It's mostly, though, just a laughable bust.

After Frank (Nicolas Cage) is released early from prison on a murder rap because he's suffering from a form of potentially fatal insomnia (Yes, the movie's logic falls apart that quickly), he reunites with his adult son Joey (Noah Le Gros). The combination of a recitation of Frank's symptoms and the extremely questionable circumstances of the father-son reunion pretty much tells what the big surprise of this story will be, but that's beside the point. With a duffel bag filled with cash that Frank hid, the father and son live it up at a fancy hotel, while Frank slowly—very slowly—prepares to kill his old mob acquaintances, who let him take the fall for a murder almost two decades ago.

Forget the blatant obviousness of the twist, and instead, note the assorted clichés, including the gold-hearted sex worker (played by Karolina Wydra) who gives Frank a new perspective, and the movie's tonal mishmash, which goes from playful to sincere without warning. There is a thread of regret, made plain by Frank's old acquaintances/potential victims, but it's only touched upon. Most confounding, though, is how the movie has Frank repeatedly learn the futility of revenge, only to have him go after and kill his targets anyway.

The plot makes little sense. The characters make even less, and the point of A Score to Settle is as confused as the filmmakers obviously are.

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