Sang froid

In a snow drenched ski town in Colorado. Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson) a snow plough driver's world is disintegrating after his son dies of a suspected drug overdose.

When Nels discovers that his son was murdered, he goes after revenge against the drug gang who were involved in his son's death. Nels manages to orchestrate a gang war.

Cold Pursuit is a remake of the Norwegian film, In Order Of Disappearance. It is better than Neeson's recent action fare since he hit unexpected bullseye in Taken.

The movie has hard action in a bleak snowy landscape. It also has a lot of black humour making it rather quirky and offbeat.

Some thought has gone into the movie and the characters. As if the makers were deconstructing Neeson's other revenge thrillers and playing around with the tropes.

This film was not what I was expecting but once I understood and came to grips with the fact it was a dark comedy, in a Fargo-esque sort of way, and a parody of revenge killing films, rather than meant to be taken seriously other than for its beautiful absurdity, I started to really enjoy it.

The whole movie was fun escapism with gratuitous violence, and hyper-exaggerated cliché portrayals of Native Americans, crime bosses and average men being local heroes, etc. Not to mention an exponentially growing kill tally. What is not to love?

It was a special treat for those of us that live in Denver, as although much of the movie was supposed to take place here, none of the neighborhoods, architecture, streets, buildings, trees, landscaping, mountain ranges, etc. matched anything close to what really exists in Denver. I spent the entire movie looking for something I could place as actually being in Denver, but I came up empty. Instead, a totally fictitious version thereof was portrayed (too surreal to match any actual city I am aware of, but closer to a blend of the more affluent parts of Los Angeles and Vancouver than Denver, with world class architecture and night clubs) which fit in perfectly with the artfully crafted alternative universe intended to be created. Like the bizarre relationships between the characters, I slowly began to realize that what first appeared to be a sloppy annoyance was in fact an intentional critique of the genre and actually a quite clever game with the audience.

Many will undoubtedly knock this film for being unrealistic, absurd, over the top, culturally insensitive, and with settings that did not match named cities (at least those such as Denver that actually exist). Those people just failed to see that was the entire point. You shouldn't go in expecting to see realism, complex character development, suspense and drama, or something akin to Taken. Instead, go in expecting to see a dark comedy parody film. Think Fargo meets Peppermint, with a wink to Quentin Tarantino in honor of his impact on modern cinema.

Starts out really good, with Neeson as the usual man on a mission and exacting brutal vengeance on a few men. But after that it shifts attention to too many needless people, mainly for comedic effect, but apparently to advance the story by inches to avoid Neeson's character from appearing to be too powerful to get things done alone. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work here since these side events don't feel parallel to the main story or interesting. For example, a female cop, portrayed as eager and hard-nosed, is constantly discovering bits of info related Neeson's son death, even confronting him out of the blue about it, appearing suspicious of him for some reason, but nothing ever happens after that. What was the point? Then the 2nd half really gets dragged on by too much forced attention on the Native Americans and the same old "white men took everything" story (I don't want to sound insensitive but it was too out of place), and a kid that would've been better off staying on the sidelines.

I had relatively high hopes for this movie, and was left disappointed.

Cole Pursuit is a competent but inferior facsimile of a Scandinavian film In Order of Disappearance.

Like most copies of original works, something is lost in the translation. For me its much of the dark, often ironic humour, found in the original film that's conveyed with a very matter of fact quality. A cultural nuance I've found in other Nordic productions.

Suffice to say Cold Pursuit is not bad as such, its simply not as well rendered as the original.

My advice watch Cold Pursuit by all means, it is entertaining but then take a look at In Order of Disappearance too and see if you don't agree with me. 6/10.

Went to see a popcorn flick. Laughed out loud at the Fargo style humor. I want to drive my car into a chandelier Persian carpet style garage. Loved the credits. Very different. Macabe. It's really dark. Not your typical Liam Neeson flick.