One Last Deal (18)

Summertime temperatures soar across London to 40 degrees and football agent Jimmy Banks feels the heat in his airless office on a day that will decide his personal and professional future. His only client, Premier League player Matt Gravish, is standing trial and is poised to receive a verdict. If Matt is found guilty, it will mean extinction for an old dinosaur like Jimmy, who is convinced his 'meal ticket' is innocent.

LondonNet Film Review

One Last Deal (18) Film Review from LondonNet

Danny Dyer turns up the heat to boiling point in a pressure-cooker thriller set in the cutthroat world of sports talent management. Shot in one increasingly claustrophobic location – a football agent’s photograph and memorabilia-festooned office on one of the hottest days of the year – One Last Deal relies heavily on its lead actor to deliver the goods as screenwriter Peter Howlett flirts with a yellow card for the inartful use of sexual assault as a key plot point…

Summertime temperatures soar across London to 40 degrees and football agent Jimmy Banks (Dyer) feels the heat in his airless office on a day that will decide his personal and professional future. His only client, Premier League player Matt Gravish (Elliott Rogers), is standing trial for rape and is poised to receive a verdict. If Matt is found guilty, it will mean extinction for an old dinosaur like Jimmy, who is convinced his ‘meal ticket’ is innocent. “He’s a good guy. He’s got a good heart,” Jimmy assures his daughter Stephanie (Natasha O’Keefe) on a telephone call, shortly after realising he has forgotten her birthday.

In between feeding stories to a journalist (Tamsin Greig) and checking financial dealings with his lawyer (Jason Flemyng), Jimmy places an impromptu call to Jerome Sweet (Chip), the second top scorer in the Premier League. Jerome already has an agent but Jimmy promises to connect the young player with Real Madrid’s sporting director Roberto Sanchez (Carlos Bardem). “I stay in his villa every summer,” boasts Jimmy. As fate smiles on Jimmy, an unknown caller concealing their identity with voice-changing software demands £2 million in two hours or they will release incriminating audio files for public consumption, like the recording attached to an incoming email. “That was PG compared to the rest of them,” promises the blackmailer.

Timed almost to the minute to the length of a standard professional football match, director Brendan Muldowney’s picture chips away at the veneer of a swaggering, bullish geezer who has been “blinkered by pound signs” and refuses to accept responsibility for his role in other people’s misery, until it’s almost too late. Sexual and physical violence, audible in recordings peppered with victim-blaming language, have the desired impact. Deducing the blackmailer’s identity doesn’t tax the brain but the sting in the tail of Howlett’s script leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Dyer unravels convincingly, pausing to take deep breaths in between a blitzkrieg of important telephone calls on his Bluetooth headset that swing wildly between shameless schmoozing and faux flattery to potty-mouthed threats. He barrels through a full gamut of expletives with gusto and feels authentically slippery even when the writing bobbles shots wide in front of an open goal.

– Kim Hu