Prez makes it to the Finnish line

It’s one of those timeworn tales that still proves to have some punch: the American president finds himself in a life or death situation against terrorists. We’ve had Air Force One with Harrison Ford, which was fun. That was almost 20 years ago if you can believe it. Within just the last few years, we’ve also had White House Down and Olympus has Fallen. In my opinion, the former was excellent while the latter was probably the lesser of all of this subgenre. That is naturally why a sequel is on its way.

Still, who could have seen Big Game coming? Not I, not you, and certainly not Oskari (Onni Tommila), the 13-year-old boy becoming a man deep in the heart of the Finnish mountains. He’s on a traditional trek into the wilderness to prove himself in a rite of passage. He must survive and be a hunter all on his own.

He doesn’t start off this movie seeming particularly adept at handling a bow but when American President William Moore (Samuel L. Jackson) crashes right in the middle of things, the boy’s instincts step up a notch or two.

Moore’s plane was shot down by terrorists, you see. Now it’s just him and the kid to turn this rite of passage into a fight-for-your-life moment.

Thank goodness that premiere Finnish film director Jalmari Helander was at the helm for this tired premise. He injects it with a nod to its American predecessors but makes it entirely unique and authentic to his Lappland home. If you’re not familiar with his work then your first stop should be Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. That might give you a strong idea of his sensibility as a director.

Here, the relationship between Oskari and Moore is fuelled by more than just a spark of enmity: the president insists that his situation is one of a global emergency while the boy feels that he needs to fulfil his own mission first. He says that Moore can tag along though.

And so the movie progresses through a fairly standard plot of predators and prey in the middle of nowhere. It has moments that remind me of Cliffhanger but mostly it plays out like a second-rate B movie. It wants to be bigger but holds back perhaps because of its budget or perhaps because it really strove to be a character drama and a relationship drama. Those two things it does pretty well and they make me wish to see more of Helander on the marquee.

In other words, this probably wouldn’t have gotten much attention if it didn’t have such an impressive North American cast including the stellar Victor Garber, Felicity Huffman and the always-excellent Jim Broadbent, not to mention Jackson himself.

I remember back to Jackson’s ridiculous Snakes on a Plane, a movie that existed solely for him to utter a single line that can’t be reprinted in a family paper. Here, he gets off the plane and finds himself in another ridiculous situation. At least this one has a bit of rewatchability to it.