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Last Match (The) AKA La Partida
R1 - America - Canteen Outlaws Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (11th October 2014). |
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The Film
 Reiner (Reinier Díaz) and Yosvani (Milton García) are like many other young men in the Havana slums pinning the hopes for the future in soccer, playing in the parks and hoping to be recruited by the local academy. Reiner supports his wife Lludmilla (Jenifer Rodríguez), their baby, and Lludmilla's working grandmother Teresa (Mirta Ibarra, STRAWBERRY AND CHOCOLATE) by prostituting himself for older male tourists. Yosvani lives more comfortably since he is engaged to Gema (Beatriz Méndez) and has been taken under the wing of her loan shark father Silvano (Luis Alberto García, CLANDESTINOS). The two men meet one night when a couple other guys beat Yosvani and steal his new sneakers. A thankful Yosvani introduces Reiner to Silvano to hook him up with some brand name merchandise at a discount. Reiner is able to quickly pay Silvano back because of his night job and finding a regular customer in well off Spanish tourist Juan (Toni Cantó), and he ends up spending more with Silvano than he might be able to pay back. Yosvani is disturbed when he discovers Reiner's nighttime activities, and even more so when Reiner drunkenly kisses him one night. When he reciprocates days later – during a double date with their significant others – Reiner rebuffs him, explaining as with his clients that he is not a "fag". They soon give in to their mutual attraction for one another and meet secretly on several occasions. Reiner, meanwhile, has been recruited into the local football academy – through the machinations of Juan, who is actually a talent scout – but his performance starts to suffer as he burns the candle at both ends to attend training and make payments on his debts by seeing Johns and pawning Teresa's stereo. Thrown out of his apartment and having discovered that Juan is leaving town, Reiner decides to focus entirely on soccer, even at the cost of his relationship with Yosvani. When Silvano grows suspicious of their friendship, he tries to force Yosvani to brutally collect on Reiner's outstanding debts. The cover promises "Sun. Sex. Soccer... Survival" and the film delivers, but not in the way one expects. Rather than an exploration of Latin masculinity and attitudes towards sexuality - there is no sense of religious repression, just the impression that such relationships are always clandestine in this environment - the relationship of the main characters takes a back seat to an overarching theme of how money reduces human relationships to a series of transactions. While hardly a sympathetic character, Reiner is discouraged from his ambitions to be a soccer player by Teresa who supplements her income with the money he makes hustling. Lludmilla complains that he does not do his part taking care of their child but has no issues with him turning tricks, especially when he brings her home gifts. When he is recruited into the soccer academy, Teresa wants him instead to marry Juan in Spain and send for her, Lludmilla, and the baby. Even before Yosvani realizes he has feelings for Reiner, there is a sense that he has been acquired by Silvano for his daughter (especially since he seems ill-suited for loansharking, much less taking over the family business). In fact, there is even a clever cut of a pan as Yosvani undresses for bed with Gema to Reiner giving Silvano cash for more merchandise. When Yosvani shows Reiner the money he has stolen from Silvano and asks him to run away, Reiner knows it would only be a temporary escape and choses soccer instead. In the world of THE LAST MATCH, love alone is not enough.      
Video
Photographed with a Sony PMW-F3 professional camera with a maximum output of 1080p60 and color-corrected for a gritty, bleached out look, THE LAST MATCH's mid-range bitrate, progressive, anamorphic transfer could be better but it is difficult to determined how much of the edge enhancement is part of the master and how much detail has suffered because of its application.
Audio
The only audio option is a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track, although IMDb lists a surround mix and the specs for the German DVD release mention a 5.1 track. The stereo mix will likely be judged as sufficient as the video. English subtitles are burned into the image.
Extras
There are no extras except for the film's trailer and trailers for the German rave psycho-thriller LOSE YOUR HEAD and the twink Twilight Zone anthology ERODDITY(S).
Packaging
Standard keepcase and cover with standard image of shirtless protagonists and warning of "strong langauge, sex, sex references, violence, and drug use."
Overall
While the film THE LAST MATCH is a solid work, it could have merited a better DVD presentation.
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