Big Game (Blu-ray / DVD)
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Onni Tomilla, Ray Stevenson
Directed by Jalmari Helander
Action films in this day and age have become so thickly strewn about the atmosphere that if you dove into one of those colossal $5 bins at Wal-Mart that contain the most wretched movies ever put together, you could continue to submerge yourself in cinematic poo for the better part of a calendar year, and keep coming up with fresh nuggets.
Let me preface this review by stating the obvious: I love Samuel L. Jackson. The man is quite possibly one of the coolest individuals to ever walk the planet…like Caine in Kung Fu (see what I did there)? His resume reads like a who’s who of characters, each one with his special blend of bad-assery infused within, and when I’d been assigned the review for Big Game, his latest project, I’ll admit that I had my fair share of reservations, and with good reason. Now, anyone can look at the cover art of this particular film and dismiss it with a wave of the hand, and with all due respect to our readers, I was almost there with you, but after a close inspection of the product itself I can surmise that the end result is a moderately entertaining watch. Directed by Jalmari Helander, the man who brought the legendary Krampus to life in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, he shuffles his craft over to the adventure side of the playing field.
Jackson plays The President Of The United States (or POTUS as he’s affectionately known by the Secret Service), and his popularity is currently wedged somewhere between Justin Bieber and that guy who is currently acting as our President right now. While aboard Air Force One over the deepest stretches of wilderness in Finland, “mechanical issues” bring the plane down, and before you know it, we’ve got the making of an action/adventure flick laid out right in front of us – so who will come to the rescue? A rag-tag group of ex-special forces soldiers, a la The Expendables, or maybe a grizzled bunch of Delta Force castoffs? How about a tougher-than-nails 13 year old who one day could give The Avengers Hawkeye a run for his money with the bow and arrow? Onni Tomilla plays Oskari, a youngin’ who is his Daddy’s pride and joy, and has been cast off into the woods to bag himself a very large trophy, and prove himself as a man to his Poppa.
Well, here lands Mr. President, and it turns out after all that this crash was anything but an accident – spearheaded by the double-crossing agent who took a bullet for him earlier in his term (Ray Stevenson), a band of terrorists is hot on the trail of the Prez, and it’s up to young Oskari to help him navigate the great wilderness in hopes of an escape. A furious game of hide and seek ensues, and for the remainder of the film, a bond grows between a boy who seems to need a father more in his life than what he’s currently got, and a man in power who’s grown disenchanted with his own position, and together they find common ground…and they take turns kicking a little ass as well.
I’m not going to extoll the virtues of this film like it’s another resurrection of Die Hard, but it is a fun little movie to settle in and watch, and at times it appears as if Jackson takes a few steps back and lets Tomilla take the lead in many spots – a noble move if there was one. The action is heavy, far-fetched, and just what you’d expect out of a presentation with cover art like this, and aside from a less than 90 minute runtime, there are far too many slow spots in the pacing, and just as soon as your pulse races, the brakes get stomped on and we’re wading through more dialogue to hold us back. Stevenson is simply scummy as the good guy gone bad, and only adds to the likeability factor of the cast creation here.
In the end, this movie might come off as another run of the mill action pic, destined to find its way to the bottom of that wretched bin of inequity, but for the meantime, it’s surely worth a watch, even if Jackson doesn’t fully get to utter his trademark “motherfucker!”
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