Big Game – Review

Samuel L. Jackson is the highest grossing movie star of all time. His work alongside the likes of Tarantino and Spielberg, to his endeavour into the Marvel Universe, ensure that the box office on combined movies beats any other actor to have ever graced the screen. However, it’s fair to assume that his latest, Jalmari Helander’s Big Game, is unlikely to add a huge amount to that figure, for it’s a hackneyed, generic thriller that does very little to inspire.

Jackson plays the President of the United States, whose plane is shot down by terrorists resulting in a crash landing in the deep, dark forests of Finland. It’s there he is rescued by the 13-year-old Oskari (Onni Tommila), who is out hunting to mark his coming of age – though he hadn’t expected to come across such a significant target. As the pair set off on the run, with terrorist Hazar (Mehmet Kurtulus) and the President’s very own bodyguard Morris (Ray Stevenson) attempting to track down the leader of the free world and have him killed, what transpires is a deadly game of cat and mouse across the unforgiving landscape of the Finnish wilderness.

As far as leading men go, there are few more accomplished than Jackson, who commands the attention of the viewer with every scene. But even he can’t save this production, which isn’t helped at all by the weak antagonists; any good thriller of this ilk needs to have a villain that works as a formidable counterpart to the hero, and that simply isn’t the case in this instance. There’s also far too many twists and turns, and it becomes tiring and disorientating – while the fact this feels like a children’s movie dressed up and decorated with violence for the adults is also an issue, as this falls carelessly between the two demographics. Surprisingly, however, the father-son dynamic between Oskari and his father Tapio (Jorma Tommila) is well-judged and provides this film with its emotional core, as the former attempts desperately to impress his dad, who is a renowned and revered hunter.

Big Game is undoubtedly easy to enjoy, as an illusory, nonsensical film that makes for light, undemanding entertainment. However, it’s just so wildly unoriginal, and abides frustratingly to the tropes of the genre. We had two films recently depicting the President of the United States in danger in Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down – and let’s face it, we really don’t need another.