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Cold Pursuit
Dark comedy, Thriller
The latest Liam Neeson revenge fantasy consists of random racist, sexist crap padding out a rancid excuse for a thriller. As a bonus, it makes no sense whatsoever. We never know why the son of Neeson’s Nels Coxman—a Rocky Mountain snowplow driver—is murdered by drug lord “Viking” (Tom Bateman), but perhaps we’re not meant to care why Neeson is going on another rage-fueled execution spree. Alas, there’s no indication that there’s any satire in the offing. Cheap callbacks to Fargo only remind us that the Coen Brothers might have made this unpleasant mess palatable. The tone here, however, is thoroughly appalling: jokes about kidnapping and comedic undercutting of grief are abhorrent. Women and people of color are humiliated, a sideshow to the turf war that Coxman stirs up between Viking and a rival drug lord (Tom Jackson), which the movie gives us absolutely no reason to care about. This is the sort of cinematic abomination that thinks it can get away with abuse and bigotry because it’s coming from characters who are villains, but what does that say about the filmmakers who engineered it all?
Official Site: www.lionsgate.com/movies/cold-pursuit
Director: Hans Moland
Producer: Michael Shamberg, Ameet Shukla, Stein Kvae, Finn Gjerdrum, Paul Schwartzman, Michael Dreyer, Ron Halpern, Didier Lupfer and Shana Eddy-Grouf
Cast: Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia Jones, John Doman, Laura Dern, Raoul Trujillo, William Forsythe, Benjamin Hollingsworth and Aleks Paunovic
Director: Hans Moland
Producer: Michael Shamberg, Ameet Shukla, Stein Kvae, Finn Gjerdrum, Paul Schwartzman, Michael Dreyer, Ron Halpern, Didier Lupfer and Shana Eddy-Grouf
Cast: Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia Jones, John Doman, Laura Dern, Raoul Trujillo, William Forsythe, Benjamin Hollingsworth and Aleks Paunovic
