Review: Cold Pursuit

Snow plough driver Liam Neeson tracks down and takes out the drug crims who murdered his son (real-life son Micheal Richardson). Tom Bateman is the yuppie schmuck and deadshit dad behind it all, with Michael Eklund as another of the crims named Speedo, and Domenick Lombardozzi as Bateman’s dutiful driver. William Forsythe plays Neeson’s criminally-connected brother, while Emmy Rossum and John Doman are cops, David O’Hara is a crim, Laura Dern is Neeson’s wife, and Tom Jackson plays a Native American crime lord named White Bull. Nicholas Holmes does quite well as Bateman’s poor son, who spends more time with the driver than his own dad.

When I first heard that Liam Neeson was starring in a crime flick about a snow plough driver seeking revenge in a dark comedy, I was expecting a campy “Mr. Plow’s Bloody Revenge” action-thriller. What director Hans Petter Moland delivers here is an English-language remake of “Order of Disappearance”, a Norwegian film starring Stellan Skarsgaard in the Neeson role. Instead of a throwaway, quip-heavy action-thriller, what we get is your typical ice-cold, slow as molasses, dour and turgid slog. Expectations not being met are my fault, being a boring, rather confusing and uninteresting film? That’s on Moland and debut screenwriter Frank Baldwin.

I knew I was in trouble when the always reliably creepy and annoying Michael Eklund was one of the first actors to exit the picture. He’s terrific, but why would you want to erase him so quickly? If Michael Eklund were in my movie, he’d be top two in the villain pecking order at worst. He brings a certain scummy energy and vitality that the film sorely and depressingly lacks. Similarly, if you’ve seen Emmy Rossum on “Shameless” you know what a talented and charismatic actress she is, but you get none of that here with her stuck in a miscast role that puts her on the sidelines for too long anyway. I will say that even though lead villain Tom Bateman isn’t the world’s most exciting actor, he sure does play one of cinema’s biggest yuppie scumbags of late. In another film played by another actor, the character might’ve shone quite brightly. The best performance by a mile comes from Domenick Lombardozzi as Bateman’s driver who harbours a secret. He’s really strong, and again deserved to be in another, better film. Elsewhere there’s seemingly quite a few non-Americans struggling to play American roles, which costs the film. We do get a fine brief turn by William Forsythe, but he’s just not around long enough to matter. Neeson is Neeson, and never gives anything less than 100% no matter the film (He may have given a little too much of himself in a dreadful pre-release press interview, though I think many were missing the point to what he was really saying due to his inarticulate delivery).

Overall, this is just too dour and pretty inert for the most part, and the structure is at times impenetrable. A crime/revenge flick really ought not to be such hard work, surely. I really didn’t enjoy this at all, though it appears many of you indeed did. You’re welcome to it.

This isn’t any fun whatsoever, nor particularly well-made. Some good performances (Neeson is rarely anything less than solid), but not much to care about. If there was any black humour in this, I wasn’t picking up on it (It’s certainly nowhere near as funny as “In Bruges”) and I didn’t enjoy the disjointed storytelling terribly much. Disappointingly dreary, and what a waste of some fine character actors!

Rating: C