{"id":8453,"date":"2024-11-18T21:54:07","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T02:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8453"},"modified":"2024-11-18T21:54:07","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T02:54:07","slug":"cold-pursuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/18\/cold-pursuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Pursuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Cold Pursuit <\/strong>(2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 118 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, drug material, some language including sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hans Petter Moland\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Frank Baldwin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: George Fenton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Ogaard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 8, 2019 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, John Doman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia James, Nicholas Holmes, Michael Richardson, Michael Eklund, Bradley Stryker, Wesley MacInnes, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Arnold Pinnock, Mitchell Saddleback, Glen Gould, Raoul Trujillo, Elizabeth Thai, William Forsythe, Laura Dern.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $32.1M (US)\/$76.2M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Despite all outward appearances, Cold Pursuit<\/strong> is NOT the kind of action movie that has defined Liam Neeson\u2019s career since Taken ten years ago. If anything, it\u2019s more like Fargo. It\u2019s a black comedy disguised as a revenge thriller. It\u2019s a remake of the 2014 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance about a snow plow driver avenging the death of his only son at the hands of drug dealers. More oft than not, American versions of foreign films don\u2019t turn out well. A lot of times, the story loses something in translation. A recent example is the hit comedy-drama The Upside (starring Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston), a movie beloved by audiences who probably didn\u2019t see the French original. That\u2019s not true in the case of Cold Pursuit<\/strong>. It has a few flaws, but I think the Americans did the original version justice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cold Pursuit<\/strong> stays pretty close to the original because Hans Petter Moland, making his American debut, directed both versions. Neeson plays Nels Coxman, a solid citizen of the ski resort town of Kehoe, CO who keeps the roads clear with his trusty plow. On the same night he receives a Citizen of the Year award, his son Kyle (real-life son Richardson) dies of what appears to be a heroin overdose. The only problem is that Kyle, an airport worker, wasn\u2019t a drug addict. It turns out he and his friend stole a kilo of coke from drug dealers and got caught. It\u2019s no matter, Nels wants his pound of flesh so he goes after the guys who did the killing. After that, he works his way up the ladder to the crime boss Viking (Bateman, Da Vinci\u2019s Demons) who runs the local trade.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Viking is a vicious sort who thinks being a good father to his young son Ryan (Holmes) entails micromanaging his diet and telling him Lord of the Flies contains the answers to all of life\u2019s questions. When his employees start disappearing, he blames it on the competition, a drug cartel comprised of Ute Indians. By way of retaliation, he kills the son of the leader White Bull (Jackson, Skinwalkers) and displays the body in a public place. This, of course, ignites a war between the two gangs. Meanwhile, the bodies continue to pile up while two local cops, Kim (Rossum, Shameless) and Gip (Doman, You Were Never Really Here), try to make sense of the situation. A gang war is a bit out of their league.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Several moviegoers will doubtlessly find Cold Pursuit<\/strong> weird. Like I said, it\u2019s not your typical Saturday afternoon action flick. Sure, it has plenty of shooting and violence, but it\u2019s done with a wicked sense of humor. I mean, what other action movie opens with a quote from Oscar Wilde (\u201cSome cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.\u201d). This is an ideal quote for a film populated by sad, depressed people in a sad, depressed town where even paragliding takes on a sad, depressed quality. But like I said, Cold Pursuit<\/strong> is darkly funny. So it is we get scenes like the one where White Bull sadly notes the appropriation of his people\u2019s culture by spotting a \u201cMade in China\u201d label on an article of supposedly authentic Native American clothing. Part of me was hoping for a scene of him shedding a tear on the side of a highway after some idiot litters from his car. There are other funny bits including a scene at the end of a kid driving a snow blower. The female cop\u2019s reaction is priceless. The final scene is a real hoot as well. But worry not, action junkies, there\u2019s plenty of killing on hand.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I have no comment on the recent controversy surrounding Neeson over a comment he made in an interview. This is a film review NOT an editorial. I\u2019m only concerned with his performance in Cold Pursuit<\/strong>. As it so happens, it\u2019s a good performance. He convincingly portrays a father so consumed by grief that the idea of right or wrong goes completely out the window. Another thing that separates Cold Pursuit<\/strong> from movies like Taken, Non-Stop, Run All Night and The Commuter is in treating vengeance in a darkly comic manner, it doesn\u2019t take away from the self-negating nature of it. No amount of revenge will satisfy Nels because he doesn\u2019t particularly like himself to begin with. He\u2019s the kind of guy who doesn\u2019t talk about his feelings or anything else for that matter. He can\u2019t even communicate his grief to his own wife (a criminally underused Dern) who leaves him shortly thereafter. His only solace is the bond he develops with Viking\u2019s son at one point in the picture. Speaking of which, Bateman is sufficiently slimy and despicable as the villain of the piece. He\u2019s such a hateful guy, you\u2019re bound to cheer when his bullied ex-wife (Jones, Twilight) finally stands up to him. William Forsythe (Stone Cold) is also good as Nel\u2019s brother who\u2019s familiar with all the key players in the local criminal underbelly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The snowy cinematography by Philip Ogaard (In Order of Disappearance) is gorgeous. The bleak Colorado setting nicely augments the tone of the story. There\u2019s a lot to admire about Cold Pursuit<\/strong>. It\u2019s good enough that you don\u2019t even mind that it occasionally meanders or not all the pieces fit neatly together. It\u2019s not a perfect film by any means, but it\u2019s a damn good one. It\u2019s definitely not a generic action flick like last week\u2019s Miss Bala (also an Americanized remake). It may not be everybody\u2019s cup of tea, but if you dig strange movies like Fargo, chances are you\u2019ll dig Cold Pursuit<\/strong> as well.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cold Pursuit (2019)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 118 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, drug material, some language including sexual references)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hans Petter Moland\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Frank Baldwin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: George Fenton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Ogaard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 8, 2019 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, John Doman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia James, Nicholas Holmes, Michael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8672,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Cold-Pursuit-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8674,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8453\/revisions\/8674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}