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Big Game

Mini review by Tom Stewart

I’d been looking forward to this for a while, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s directed by Jalmari Helander who directed the excellent dark Christmas film Rare Exports. It’s a great little throwback to guilty-pleasure action movies of the 80s with Sam Jackson as the US president being shot down over the a Finnish forest, only to be rescued by child hunter Oskar (Onni Tommila, also from Rare Exports). Jackson and Tommila’s superb chemistry coupled with Helander’s visual flare and original take on action heroes are what make this film such fun to watch. Jackson especially is cast completely against type. Gone is the usual big-mouthed, dominating bad ass – here he is extremely vulnerable, and not a fighter in the slightest. This is exactly how I would imagine most high government figures to act in such a situation.

It won’t be for everyone. Some may find it horrendously generic, but there is originality to be found here in the characterisation of it’s two leads. Jackson and Tommila work so damn well together, and they aren’t written as out and out heroes who do everything right every time. The villains are simply much better and stronger than them at almost every turn. It’s this that makes the film so entertaining. You know that eventually these two are going to get to one up on the terrorists, and when they do it’s going to be epic.

It does suffer from weak villains. Without spoiling too much, one of them has a relationship with Jackson to an extent, but this is hardly touched upon outside of Jackson simply saying “Son of a bitch”. Also, Jackson has a line of dialogue containing the word “motherfucker”, but it is criminally cut short to “mother-“, much like the Yippie Kai Yay line in Die Hard 4.

The biggest downside to the film is it’s length. A lot of people praise films for being 90 minutes, but in this case it does hurt it. The third act of the film doesn’t necessarily feel rushed, it’s just over way too quickly. The whole film is enjoyable, but then the second it gets REALLY good…it’s over.  Still a blast though, a really great Sunday afternoon movie.
Rating: 7/10