Cold Pursuit (2019) Review

"I read it in a crime novel."
-Nels Coxman



Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson) works as a snowplow driver in a small mountain town in Colorado.  After his son dies of an apparent drug overdoes, Nels believes there is more to the story and starts investigating.  He discovers a drug lord known as Viking (Tom Bateman) is responsible for the death of his son, so Nels declares war on Viking's organization and inadvertently causes a turf war between two drug gangs in his small town.


What Works:

I went into Cold Pursuit thinking it would be Taken in the Rocky Mountains, but that's not what this movie is.  It's much more similar to Fargo, both the movie and the show.  Sure, there are action scenes, but there aren't as many as I expected.  It's more of a dark comedy than anything.  It's not a bad thing.  I really enjoyed the film, it just caught me off guard.

The tone of this film is utterly bizarre.  It's one of the strangest movies I've ever seen, but that just makes it all the more fascinating to watch.  I really had no idea what was going to happen next and where the film was going to take us.  This is certainly an unpredictable film.

The film doesn't spend nearly as much time with Liam Neeson as I thought.  He's the main character, but he disappears from the film for decent stretches.  We get a lot of time developing the henchmen in the two gangs, which is really interesting.  As the bodies start dropping, we aren't getting nameless henchmen dying, but characters we've gotten to know at least a little bit, which adds a lot to the tension.  You're never quite sure who is going to bite the dust next.

Viking is a really strong villain and Tom Bateman does an excellent job in the role.  A lot of the film is centered on the relationship he has with his son, Ryan (Nicholas Holmes), who Viking is very overprotective of in terms of the food he is allowed to eat.  Viking gives his son the book "The Lord of the Flies" and tells him all of the answers to life are inside.  It's a very strange way to showcase the villain of the movie, but I really enjoyed it.

Finally, my favorite character in the film is Nels' brother, Wingman (William Forsythe), a very interesting character who doesn't get a ton of screen-time, but pops whenever he does.  His scene with Viking is probably my favorite in the entire film and has some excellent dialogue.


What Sucks:

My only problem with Cold Pursuit occurs very early in the film when we have our first and only scene of Nels with his wife and son, played by Laura Dern and Micheál Richardson respectively.  The scene is very quick and we never get a chance to become invested in the relationship between Nels and his family.  His son dies almost immediately and Laura Dern leaves the movie soon after (I don't know why Dern was in this movie with such a tiny role).  Another scene or two getting us to care about this family would have helped quite a bit.


Verdict:

Cold Pursuit was not at all the movie I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless.  It has a rocky start with a poor introduction to Nels' family, but it quickly makes up for that with some bizarre, dark humor, fun characters, an interesting villain, and wild violence.  This movie has absolutely got it going on.

 9/10: Great 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Argylle (2024) Review

Top 10 Movies of 2023

Madame Web (2024) Review