DVD REVIEW
BIG GAME
(out of 4) Big Game offers solid genre hijinks, in the adventure saga of a teenager helping stranded and hunted U.S. president William Alan Moore (Samuel L. Jackson) as they seek to escape terrorists.
Onni Tommila is the teen, previously seen in Finnish writer/director Jalmari Helander’s earlier film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, and he’s a welcome addition to the ranks of boy heroes.
The Spielbergian plot has the president contemplating his lame duck status (“Friends and enemies lining up to stab me in the back”) as he flies aboard Air Force One over Northern Finland. Down below, shy 13-year-old woodsman Oskari (Tommila) is fac- ing up to his own tough situation, ordered by his stern father. He must prove his manhood in the woods by stalking and killing a deer, using bow and arrow.
Skulduggery conspires to up the stakes for both POTUS and teen. Air Force One suddenly drops out of the sky, and Moore’s escape pod lands in front of the astonished Oskari. There’s no time for pomp or pleasantries, because Moore is the prey of pursuing terrorists.
The story written by Helander with Petri Jokiranta goes heavy on the hokum, not to mention the CGI fireworks, but a dialed-down Jackson and a fired-up Tommila make for an entertaining pair.
Extras include an unrated longer cut of the film. Peter Howell