FILM REVIEW: BIG GAME AT CINEWORLD MK

Big Game (2014)

Director: Jalmari Helander.

Synopsis

When a Finnish boy (Onni Tommila) is sent by his male peers into the mountains to hunt and kill an animal as a right of passage, he doesn’t expect to find an escape pod from the recently downed Air Force One, with the American President (Samuel L. Jackson) inside it. Forgetting the prize of a deer’s head, he sets off with a living head of state to take back to his father, little knowing that they are being hunted by a treacherous Secret Service Agent (Ray Stevenson) and a psychotic big game hunter (Mehmet Kurtulus).

Review

Blockbuster films filmed and set in Finland are few and far between. Blockbuster Finnish films starring Samuel L. Jackson as the US President in peril in the wilderness in Finland's are even rarer, so Finnish-film fans will lap (land) this up.

Tommila is quite the star find as the gung-ho but unsure Oskira who saves a 'leader of the free world' who can't even put his shoes on without causing a state of emergency. It is a confident, mature and robust turn. 

Jackson, to his credit, is comfortable taking a back-seat to this adolescent posturing as a powerful man finding his own courage.

The less said about the largely redundant or panto-maniacal supporting cast or the increasingly ridiculous and physically preposterous the better, as the film works best as a fun and exciting if completely implausible B-movie on Red Bull.

To read the full review: http://ow.ly/MJpbj 

For details of all films at Cineworld Milton Keynes: http://www.cineworld.co.uk/cinemas/milton-keynes

Cast & credits

Producers: Will Clarke, Petri Jokiranta, Andy Mayson, Jens Meurer. Writer: Jalmari Helander. Camera: Mika Orasmaa. Music: Juri Seppa, Miska Seppa. Sets: Christian Eisele.

Samuel L. Jackson, Onni Tommila, Ray Stevenson, Victor Garber, Mehmet Kurtulus, Ted Levine, Jorma Tommila, Risto Salmi, Felicity Huffman, Jim Broadbent.