Movie Review: “Cold Pursuit”

I had been looking forward to the new Liam Neeson movie “Cold Pursuit” since seeing trailers for it last year. 

I find that Neeson’s movies tend to be pretty entertaining. They aren’t necessarily the greatest action movies in the genre, but they tend to be a good way to spend a couple of hours. 

“Cold Pursuit” was something of a surprise to me. 

I didn’t read any of the reviews going in. Other than the trailer, I didn’t really have a read on what the movie was about, or what the tone of it might be. 

It’s definitely not an action movie. 

It is a plodding crime drama that offers dark humor in the tradition of the Coen Brothers (think “Fargo” in this instance). 

It is based on a 2014 Norwegian film called “In Order of Disappearance” (“Kraftidioten”) — about a snowplow driver who embarks on a journey of revenge when his son is killed by a local drug kingpin. 

Both movies were directed by Hans Peter Moland. 

My reaction to “Cold Pursuit” was pretty lukewarm. Neeson plays Nelson Coxman, the aforementioned snowplow driver who does his work in the Colorado resort town of Kehoe. 

His life is disrupted when his son is found dead (authorities believe he overdosed on heroin). 

Coxman’s wife (Laura Dern) soon leaves him, and he is on the verge of suicide when he learns his son was murdered by drug dealers. Before we know it, Coxman has turned vigilante and he works his way up the chain to Trevor “Viking” Calcote (Tom Bateman) — leader of the drug operation that is based in Denver. 

Calcote’s operation has been in competition in Denver with a rival drug operation comprised of members of the Ute tribe. As a result, Calcote suspects they are to blame for the deaths of his employees. 

First and foremost, I’m not sure how wise it was to set a movie about drug dealers in Colorado — a state where marijuana has been legalized. I guess it was the only realistic location to have a snowplow driver be the protagonist. 

Another ancillary aspect of “Cold Pursuit” that bugged me was that the Denver scenes and sequences looked like they were filmed in spring. There were green leaves on the trees and green grass — and it looked like the set decorators added snow (with some help from the CG folks in post). 

As luck would have it, the original Norwegian film “In Order of Appearance” is currently showing on Netflix (if you watch it, turn off the English dub and listen to it in its original Norwegian with subtitles). 

The plot is basically identical between the two movies, but the execution (no pun intended), pacing, and humor just feel better in the Norwegian version. 

It also seemed more realistic having a Norwegian crime operation going toe-to-toe with Serbian gangsters in “In Order of Disappearance.” 

In my opinion, trying to shoehorn the Euro gangster film into a United States setting made absolutely no sense. There was definitely something lost in translation. 

(Yeah, it snows in the Rocky Mountains, but the vibe is just different compared to a country like Norway.) 

I tend to like these sorts of movies and the mood they imbue (which owe a debt to the crime novels of Elmore Leonard). That said, something felt off about “Cold Pursuit.” 

I didn’t particularily “love” either the Norwegian or U.S. production. But they were both fairly interesting diversions. 

If I had to make a recommendation between the two, I’d probably suggest you fire up Netflix and watch the original Norwegian movie. Stellan Skarsgard (“Mamma Mia”) is far more compelling as the snowplow driver than is Neeson in the "Americanized" version (this material isn’t really suited to Neeson’s talents).

In my opinion, "Cold Pursuit" probably would have been a better movie if they'd shed the "black humor" trappings and played it straight with the script. 

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