'Big Game' - Movie Review

The basic premise isn't bad - absurd, but not bad. Air Force One is shot out of the sky over Finland, and the President of the United States (Samuel L. Jackson, in one of his less bad-ass roles) is lost in the mountains where he has to rely on a 13 year old boy who's a hard-core hunter (Onni Tommila) as they're both hunted by the terrorists who shot down the plane. And, like most movies, there are good moments. But this one can't decide if it's going to be serious (where I thought the potential might lie), or comedic. Certainly, there's comedic potential in a team-up like that, but milk it too much and you've got a cheese-fest ... and they leaned a little too far into the cheese. Or maybe it was just the frequently hammy dialogue. Mildly fun to watch with a couple decent action set pieces and a heart-warming finale ... which is followed by the revelation of another level of betrayal for no reason at all, which sours the ending just a bit more. <sigh>

The BluRay lent to me by a friend had only one "Extra," which was the "Unrated version" of the movie. Very unusual, as it's possibly the only unrated version I've ever seen that was SHORTER than the original movie (by five minutes!). A quick scan suggests that the primary changes are the inclusion of a longer scene showing our young hunter rehearsing killing his imaginary deer, pulling its still beating heart out and eating it. The only other change that stood out had Jackson in the standard cut saying "Mother-<gunfire>" - his use of the phrase is strategically cut off by a burst of gunfire. In the unrated version, he says the full phrase. Quite a bit must have been cut to add the longer scene with the boy and still have a five minutes shorter version, but I'm not sure what: it seems the stuff that was cut wasn't memorable.