Liam Neeson has an extensive filmography under his belt. He made his film debut in 1978, and by the early 90’s, his starring role in Schindler’s List established him as a perfectly capable leading man, and he has gone on to lead numerous successful films since. However, it was his starring turn in the revenge thriller Taken that reimagined him as a Charles Bronson-type of protagonist for a whole new generation. The film saw the actor, already well into his 50’s by this time, as an ordinary citizen taking no prisoners as he took on countless individuals who were involved with the kidnap of his daughter. Most of his movies since have been action movies, and most of them have jokingly been compared to Taken just in a new setting. The Grey was “Taken but with wolves,” Non-Stop was “Taken on a plane,” The Commuter was “Taken on the subway.” The list goes on.
Cold Pursuit, his latest starring vehicle, appears to be yet another film in the long list of Neeson’s Taken-esque ventures, this time dubbed, “Taken in the snow.” A remake of the Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance - directed by Hans Petter Moland, who also directs this remake - the plot rings especially similar to Neeson’s first action hit. Neeson plays Nels Coxman, a small-town Colorado snow plow driver who just recently won a “Citizen of the Year” award, is informed that his son died of a heroin overdose. Knowing that his son wasn’t a drug addict, he investigates and soon uncovers that he was murdered by a ruthless drug cartel, and proceeds to exact revenge on the crew.
The film has an explosive, action-packed first third, with Nels tracking down every low life involved in the drug gang, getting the name of the next one up the ladder before killing them and disposing of the bodies. The film then takes a step back and slows down a bit. As the bodies keep disappearing, with nothing tracing back to Nels, the gang suspects a rival Native American drug cartel of the killings, and a gang war is sparked. Neeson still plays an integral part to the story, but still takes a step back as the focus shifts and we get some insight into the various thugs, low-lives, and criminals involved in the small town of Kehoe, Colorado.
The film serves as a more humane version of the type of films Neeson became known for in these last ten years. As opposed to just Neeson cutting people down and moving on, he’s instead way more methodical this time around. He interrogates his victims one-by-one, and once he kills them, he meticulously disposes of the bodies to deflect any sort of suspicion. This time, he’s not just an action hero who can get away with whatever he pleases. He’s portrayed much more like an ordinary citizen who may be acting out of pure rage like his other protagonists, but this time still takes a moment to reflect on the potential consequences of his actions before he makes any moves. He doesn’t move around with the ease he had even ten years ago, chasing people down and getting noticeably exhausted after viciously beating someone down and needing a moment to catch his breath before continuing. Neeson plays the role as if his Taken-esque characters are coming to terms with their own mortality, and does a fine job at it, giving a performance that balances explosive anger with subtle nuance that makes for a nice change of pace for the aging action star.
Even each of the countless gang members and criminals are treated in a much more respectable manner. The body count in this film is high, though most of the deaths are evenly spaced out and take place one by one. We’re introduced to numerous criminals all with ridiculous nicknames like Speedo, Eskimo, and Santa, one seemingly more ludicrous than the next. It’s a wide array of wrongdoers and unsavory types, yet each time someone meets their end, they’re given their own little tribute, with the screen cutting to black, stating their full name and nickname, as well as a symbol that represents them. It’s a similar technique used in the openings of each episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under, and is employed here to add a little bit of gravitas to the film, and at times even a little bit of humor.
The film’s use of humor is something that also clearly separates it from many of Neeson’s other action ventures. The marketing for this film is actually very well-done, as it brilliantly disguises the fact that Cold Pursuit is a pitch black comedy. The film ends up feeling less like Taken and more like Fargo. No one in this movie is perfect, and their flaws make for some hilarious laugh-out-loud moments in the midst of some brutal action sequences.
The criminals themselves are actually all pretty sloppy - to the point that makes one wonder how they managed to survive this long in the first place - and their messiness is what causes Neeson to easily track them down in the first place. And some of the film’s funniest moments come due to the ways in which some characters meet their own demise. Some make themselves easy targets, others go out with some witty one-liner, while others you think are about to survive, and then comically meet their end a moment after. The films laughs aren’t non-stop, but they do come fairly often, and when they do, they add a nice sense of reality to the setting, as life isn’t a series of carefully executed, well-thought out moments, and this film embodies that aspect in how it treats death as well.
One of the film’s funniest characters - and one of its strongest elements in general - is its villain. A likable villain goes a long way in a film, and here we’re introduced to one of the zanier movie villains in recent memory. Tom Bateman plays Trevor “Viking” Calcote, the leader of the drug cartel that murdered Coxman’s son. While the character isn’t sympathetic, his presence is welcome each time he’s on screen. Bateman plays the role almost like a cartoon character, but he doesn’t cross the line to Nicolas Cage-levels of unhinged and over the top, staying just within the confines of reality by a margin.
We’re introduced to the many problems in the character’s personal life as he tries to deal with his employees going missing and the ensuing gang war. He shares custody of his young son with his sarcastic ex-wife, who is the only person in the entire movie with the guts to stand up to him and not worry about any consequences. Meanwhile, when he is with his son, he’s controlling over minute things such as his diet, and when something goes even slightly off track for him, he throws borderline temper tantrums when he doesn’t exactly get his way, and will try to reel himself back in to level-headed. There are times when even his son is portrayed as being more mature than him. Part of what still makes him work well though is that - unlike the people who work under him - he’s far from bumbling. He’s still an effective villain and just has a lot of quirks, mainly over things that the average citizen can actually relate to, which makes him an engaging character to watch, and make the laughs surrounding his character some of the film’s highlights.
While the film has an effective group of villains, it’s actually most of the supporting protagonists that serve as one of the weaker elements in the film. The film heavily advertises Laura Dern and Emmy Rossum in supporting roles, but both are given very little to do, with a large multitude of other characters nowhere near as advertised serving the plot much more efficiently. Dern plays Neeson’s wife, though her time on screen is brief, adding essentially close to nothing to the film’s plot. She’s in the film for only a few scenes in the first act before she leaves and she’s never acknowledged again. I would say her character was handled rather poorly, and for a film that devotes so much time to all its supporting villains, the buildup to her departure isn’t quite effective, and feels so abrupt. Even in her brief time on screen, she’s more reactionary, and she doesn’t feel missed when she is on screen.
Rossum - along with The Wire’s John Doman - is one of the detectives who’s following the gang war and trying to uncover the overall plot, always seeming to be one step behind all the action. The film does a cool role-reversal with the two, with Rossum’s character, newer to the police force, being the one with thicker skin than Doman’s veteran detective. She handles the sights of the shocking violence much more with a sense of excitement and at one point in the movie is even jokingly compared to Dirty Harry. However, the two detectives - while at times humorous - are simply on one wild goose chase for most of the movie, never doing anything to advance the plot of the gang war or how they may be catching on to Neeson’s character.
A point is made in the film that one murder - let alone a series of murders - would never happen in the small town, so I do see how it wouldn’t make sense for the police not to heavily investigate. However, the extended focus on two characters who do essentially nothing to advance the plot causes the movie to drag from time to time, and their scenes could have easily been cut. Which is a shame because both are fantastic actors, primarily working in television. So it’s disappointing that that one of their rare ventures into film doesn’t make quite the impact fans would hope.
The two characters’ detraction from the plot leads to the one other problem that the movie sometimes encounters. While the film is overall wickedly entertaining, it does have a tendency to transition awkwardly. Some characters are abruptly introduced, the paths that certain characters take are sometimes questionable, and there are a few times it takes a bit too long to get to the point. There’s a plot element involving Neeson’s brother, played by William Forsythe, that does advance the plot, but when first introduced seemingly comes out of nowhere, as it’s almost towards the end of the first act and it takes a bit of shoehorned exposition for us to realize how he fits into everything. Once it gets his part of the story going, it’s fine. But the road to get there is a bit bumpy. Moments like these aren’t often enough that they necessarily ruin the movie, but they are fairly obvious and are only masked by a lot of the film’s stronger elements like its laughs and action sequences.
Despite a few pacing issues, Cold Pursuit is by far the best of Neeson’s action films, mainly due to how well it deviates from the normal formula Neeson has been accustomed to in the last ten years, being a mix of Taken and his more straightforward dramas from earlier in his career. The film plays as if Taken was directed by the Coen Brothers. It’s filled with plenty of brutally violent action sequences, yet has an extremely quirky, wickedly fun sense of humor, masking how much of a comedy it actually is. This movie is far from just being “Taken in the snow” and is actually a wonderful early year treat to help get the new year moving along.
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