Review of Big Game (2014) by Jesse O — 02 Sep 2015

Another film where I'm honestly surprised that the audience's reception wasn't better than it was. Again, much like I mentioned in Let Us Prey, it doesn't really matter as long as I enjoyed it, but this was an easy to watch and really damn fun film to watch.

It's a fun little tribute to old-school action films and their, sometimes, ridiculous and over-the-top stories about the president of the United States finding himself in danger with nefarious villains behind the evil deeds.

Though the film does add its own unique little twists and turns and it's not strictly just a nostalgia trip. That's definitely the right way to do it. I honestly don't think I'd have much to say about this.

I may not have been in love with the film, but it does over a real fast-paced and really entertaining action film. It's got a real good cast, Samuel Jackson definitely plays against type in this film, since the president is pretty much completely useless, the satire of which is not lost on me and pretty much anyone with an inkling of intelligence.

It's not like they make a mockery of the United States, though they do get their shots in, but Samuel Jackson is definitely game and he does a real good job here with this role. It's not like the role has much depth, but it looked like Samuel looked inspired and he's always good whne he's inspired.

Onni Tommila, Oskari, is also quite good here, even if his English isn't great, not that I can blame him for that. Him and Samuel Jackson have some surprisingly good chemistry and they're a good pair that you actually kind of want to see more of.

I did like Oskari's character arc, as he's going on a hunting mission to prove he's mature enough to the people in his village. Oskari's father doesn't believe his son has the toughness necessary to achieve this mission, so he leaves a deer's head in the middle of a mountain in order to save his son the embarrassment of not being able to hunt an animal.

This, taking place after he finds the president and decides to help him, motivates him to save the president of the most powerful nation in the world in order to prove his father wrong. It's actually a really good character arc when you really think about it.

It definitely works. As mentioned, Onni and Samuel have great chemistry and it's such that you'd actually like to see them paired together again in a sequel. And, looking at how the film ended, it's definitely leaning in that direction and I'm actually really happy about that, if a sequel is on the way.

The film might not have a tremendous amount of action, but I still enjoyed this a lot. It's a lot of fun, I wouldn't say that the film is really good, but I had a blast watching this. And it's this movie is less than 80 minutes long, so it's incredibly easy to watch and, honestly, parts of me wished that it was only slightly longer than that.

I'm not complaining much, but that's the only one I can honestly think of at the moment. This is a good movie and I'd recommend it. Good stuff here.