Cold Pursuit

"Kraftidioten", a.k.a. "In order of Disappearance", is a brilliant 2014 black comedy/vigilante thriller from Norway. Since a lot of people in this world object to reading subtitles (and simply because it's an easy and profitable business), Hollywood is always eager to produce remakes of successful foreign movies. For once, however, I didn't immediately feel like boycotting the US remake; and this for two reasons. Number one: native Norwegian Hans Petter Moland directs the American remake himself and, number two, none other than the awesome Liam Neeson reprises the role of the grieving but vengeful father. Apart from different people in the cast, obviously, "Cold Pursuit" is practically a shot-by-shot remake of "In order of Disappearance. The setting has moved from snowy Norway to snowy Colorado, and the drug wars are fought with Native American tribes instead of with Albanian mafia families, but the plot of the quiet and introvert plow driver seeking retaliation for the murder of his innocent son is identical. This basically means that "Cold Pursuit" is still an awesomely entertaining action movie with sublime dry humor, but the freshness and the surprise elements are gone (unless if you haven't seen the Norwegian original, duh).

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.

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.

Loved this film for what it was...pure action with a side of dark humor. Highly recommend for genuine entertainment. (On a side note: For those boycotting film for something Liam said in interviews please remember the old saying.."people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.")

I would suggest before you watch this or think about watching it: go and watch the original! Way better, way funnier (darker) and feels generally better in tone. Now obviously some may think this is Taken or like Taken - it is not. Which makes some of the people watching this already mad. Especially because they don't know the movie this is based on.

I can only urge you so much to watch the other movie. Which doesn't mean this is bad. The movie this takes its cues from was too good for them to mess the remake up. The actors here try their best though and if you don't care for subtitles (which many will need since it is not in English, the Original that is), you could do far worse.