In his most intentionally campy outing since “Snakes on a Plane,” perpetual badass Samuel L. Jackson plays against type as an unpopular American president described by someone as “a man who can barely do a push-up, let alone run a country.”
The no-less-ineffectual president Jamie Foxx in “White House Down” had Channing Tatum to help him survive an attempted coup. But president Jackson has to rely on a dubiously qualified 12-year-old (Onni Tommila) with a bow and arrow to help him elude a renegade Secret Service agent (Ray Stevenson) who’s downed Air Force One en route to Helsinki — and heads a heavily armed hunting party in the rugged countryside.
Onni Tommila (left) and Samuel L. Jackson in “Big Game.”Handout“You’re telling me you lost the president like you lose a set of car keys?” asks vice president Victor Garber, while CIA director Felicity Huffman picks up a paycheck and aging Secret Service analyst Jim Broadbent offers hilarious play-by-play commentary as they watch satellite images of the imperiled chief executive, before Navy SEALs arrive on the scene.
Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander has his tongue pretty far in his cheek, and seems to have a fairly generous budget at his disposal. “Big Game” is goofy fun, whether Jackson is rolling down a hill in a freezer, the kid is trying to stop a bazooka with an arrow, or we’re witnessing other stunts that are just too preposterous to describe.
