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Cold Pursuit
(Summit Entertainment)
By Lucas Allen
In the 10 years since “Taken,” Liam Neeson’s pedigree as this decade’s aging action star remains unmatched. Now he’s doing something different with his persona by starring in a black comedy with some killer action, “Cold Pursuit.”
Director Hans Peter Moland remakes his 2014 Norwegian film “In Order of Disappearance,” with Stellan Skarsgard and Americanizes every aspect of it. In the small town of Kehoe, Colorado, outside of Denver, Nels Coxman (Neeson), happily married to his wife, Grace (Laura Dern), is a well-known snow plow driver with great respect from the townsfolk. He finds out his son Kyle (Michael Richardson) died of a heroin overdose, though he doesn’t believe his son’s a junkie.
As his wife grieves, he tries to find answers to his son’s death with the help of his ex-criminal brother Ryan (Nicholas Holmes). He discovers that his son was mixed up in a group of drug traffickers led by the psychotic Viking (Tom Bateman). Nels then exacts his revenge by murdering the group’s henchmen one by one by his own means before dumping each of them in a gorge.
Soon enough, his acts end up starting a turf war between Viking’s group and White Bull’s (Tom Jackson) gang from the Denver side. The small town cops (Emmy Rossum and John Doman) investigate what was going on without realizing respectable Nels is involved.
The best way to describe this movie is imagine a Quentin Tarantino film directed by Guy Ritchie. It’s a gangster drama with dark comedic moments, but not as quirky as “Fargo” nor as bleak as “The Hateful Eight.” Not to mention, it feels like too much of a slouch for its two-hour runtime. A good cut down to maybe an hour-and-a-half runtime with a proper balance between genres would’ve helped matters.
If you have the patience, you can still enjoy some of the action and comedy the movie provides. It has a good mix of shocking violence and knee-slapping laughs that might surprise you. Some of it gets pretty absurd, especially in the very end when it gets a little too far-fetched. It becomes one of those movies where you’re not sure if it was worth watching or it’s a waste of time.
Neeson easily carries the film as a simple man using only wit instead of skills to avenge his loved ones. Once again, his gruffness and great voice shine throughout the entire movie. Though she gives a good performance, Dern is only in the first quarter of the film that can be disappointing for fans of the actress. Bateman’s performance is so silly and over the top, he looks like if Dave Franco was playing Michael Corleone.
In the case of “Cold Pursuit,” Neeson fans will indulge while others will likely seek out a rental. Either way, it makes anybody curious to seek out the original version that might be worth a look.
THE MOVIE’S RATNG: R (for strong violence, drug material, and some language including sexual references)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 2.75 Stars (Out of Four)
