Big Game, Review: Game on

Incredible and ambitious, Big Game is also warm and infectious. It is a good example of how some thoughtful writing can make a far-fetched premise convincing and exciting. Jalmari Helander, the Finnish film-maker who first made a splash with the controversial Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), has adapted a 2013 novel by Petri Jokiranta and blended both Hollywood and northern Finland with bartender-like finesse.

A hunting clan in Finland is initiating 13 year-old Oskari (Onni Tomilla), son of the respected Topio (Onni’s real-life father Jorma) into its folds. To make the grade, Oskari must pull a bow real-hard, demonstrating his ability to wield the weapon. Then, he must spend the night in the forest and kill an animal, preferably a deer. Oskari fails the bow test, but Topio is able to persuade their leader to allow him to go ahead with the forest exam. Oskari isn’t really ready, but he does not want to disappoint his father. He heads for the forest, riding a vehicle, laden with camping and hunting equipment.

Right above the Alpine forest, the president of the USA (Samuel L. Jackson) is flying past in Air Force One, heading to Helsinki, for a pre- G8 summit. His personal body-guard, Morris (Ray Stevenson), betrays him and forces the plane to crash. The president is ejected in a capsule, which lands in the forest, close to Oskari’s camp-site. An Arab psychopath called Hazar (Mehmet Kurtulus) and Morris are out to kill the president, while at the Pentagon control-room, vice-president (Victor Garber), CIA director (Felicity Huffman) and CIA old-timer Herbert (Jim Broadbent) are trying to trace and save him. A perplexed Oskari heads for the capsule, arrow mounted, bow-arched.

38-year-old Helander was born in the capital city of Helsinki, but has set both his movies in northern Finland. After Rare Exports, he was offered films to direct in Hollywood, yet he preferred to make another one in Finland, with the Rare Exports actor Onni. He thinks of his first two films as some kind of trilogy, with the third adventure movie, featuring Onni (his nephew in real-life) delivering something even bigger than Santa Claus or the US president. Making a Finnish adventure movie was his boy-hood dream, and the passion show. In Big Game, he has a talented cast, both Finnish and American, and the locales of his native country are exotic and picturesque.

While the president has to take several reality checks (he has no subjects in the Finnish forest and can’t even order a pizza) and enter into physical combat, not really his forté, the boy, at an age that is just right for this kind of adventure, comes of age in the most thrilling way anybody could have imagined. Air-crash scenes and helicopter battles are very impressively shot. The unravelling of the conspiracy in mid-flight and the introduction of the villain are imaginatively written. Scenes in the Pentagon control room are more stock-in-trade. Onni’s ability of shooting arrows and missing/hitting targets is amateurishly picturised. Big Game ends with the kind of abrupt shot that foretells a sequel.

Finnish dialogue is sub-titled. Just when you wonder how the president will communicate with a Finnish-speaking boy, he speaks slightly-accented English. Helander first wanted to make Onni speak with an accent throughout, but barely one shot after he exchanges a line with Jackson, it is all fluent English. Problem was that Onni speaks fluent English in real life, so it was becoming hard to maintain the accent in English and also speak Finnish. The fluency does appear odd, considering the community’s somewhat primitive customs. Also, killing deer to come of age does not come across as a practice that suggests either innocence or peace.

Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson. USA has a black president in office right now, so the casting seems timely. Jackson is just about normal in the role, with the camp-fire chat scene standing out. It is not often that one sees him running for his life and being beaten black and blue, and you have to take that in your stride. Ray Stevenson looks the part. His motivation for the sell-out does not cut too much ice. Victor Garber, Felicity Huffman and Jim Broadbent keep the control room abuzz, as the cat-and-mouse game is played out. Mehmet Kurtulus speaks with a clipped British accent and is cold and menacing, though here again, the motivation is somewhat suspect.

After Rare Exports, Jorma Tomilla and Onni Tomilla work together again in another Helander film. Both are very good actors, but Jorma has a small role, while Onni is a boy wonder. Now 16, he is bound to go places (Hollywood?). Emotions, wit, confidence, bravery, (dead-pan Finnish) humour and diction—he runs the gamut. And Jalmari Helander, do make your third film with Onni. There is good potential.

Big Game is an innovative thriller with a human touch. 

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdFE10n9bc