in the Vein of the Coen Bros.

Kaleidoscope’s newest is on Summit Entertainment’s production of “Cold Pursuit”.  Directed by Hans Peter Moland, the movie stars Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Emmy Rossum, William Forsythe, John Doman, Tom Jackson, & Laura Dern.  Rated ‘R’, it has a running time of 1 hr., 59 min. 

Nels Coxman (Neeson) leads a fairly quiet life with his wife Grace (Dern) and son Kyle in the town of Kehoe, Colorado, a ski resort town near Denver.  Nels is a snowplow driver & has just been named Kehoe’s Citizen of the Year.  Soon thereafter, Nels’s son is kidnapped & is given an overdose of heroin by his kidnappers, which kills him.  When Nels & Grace hear of this, they become depressed & estranged which causes Grace to leave him.  One day, while lost in despair, Nels puts a rifle in his mouth at his workshop in order to commit suicide.  One of Kyle’s friends, in true movie coincidence, happens to be hiding there & tells Nels that Kyle was killed by a drug cartel.  This causes Nels to become a ‘Death Wish’-type vigilante.  Discovering some information, Nels kills 3 lower level members of the cartel: Speedo, Limbo, & Dante.  This causes the cartel’s kingpin, Trevor ‘Viking’ Calcote (Bateman), to realize that there is a concerted effort to interfere with his business, & he blames a nearby Native American drug-lord, White Bull (Jackson).  Concurrently, 2 of Kehoe’s ‘finest’, officers Kim Dash (Rossum) & ‘Gip’ Gipsky (Doman), are ½ suspicious of the murders—KIm is truly suspicious while ‘Gip’ just wants to quietly make it to retirement.  Act I transitions to II & III as all of these elements head to the film’s explosive denouement. 

From the previews & advertising, this seems like just another Liam Neeson ‘revenge’ tale, i.e. ‘The Commuter’ & ‘Run All Night’.  However, under director Moland’s astute guidance and Frank Baldwin’s hybrid screenplay (based on the Norwegian film ‘Kraftidioten’ written by Kin Fupz Aakeson—and also directed by Moland), what we get is a snow-laden & crafty dramedy in the vein of the film & TV versions of the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo”.  Scattered amidst the blood & gore are many sequences of dark humor; ironic sections are set up and conveyed with aplomb.  Look, especially, for the title card sections—they are laugh-out-loud funny even tho their subject matter is morbid.  ‘Kraftodoten’, in Norwegian, roughly translates to ‘In Order of Disappearance’.  Remember this throughout the film.  After the film’s climax, the Coen-style dark humor does not end; look for the paraglider & his denouement—enough said.  Neeson does his patented vigilante performance.  He is convincing & natural as the near suicidal Nels who finds purpose at the crucial moment.  Bateman is superb as the effete, smarmy drug-lord.  He exudes much of the film’s dark humor as he toys with his victims before he dispatches them; one can almost picture him twirling a Snidely Whiplash moustache.  Rossum is fine as the intelligent local officer who correctly sees a pattern to the unlikely murders happening in her usually quiet hamlet.  Jackson is stoically defiant as the patriarch of the Native American cartel who will not cow to his white counterpart.  Philip Ogaard’s cinematography well complements Dugard’s icy, cold locale; one can actually get a cooling chill, at times.  This is accomplished despite the cheesy visual effects in several long shots and in the depictions of nearby Denver.  Veteran George Fenton’s score is chilling & spare when necessary & nicely supplements Moland’s visuals.  

I give “Cold Pursuit” 3 out of 5 nuggets.  It is a well-made dramedy fully in line with the film & TV iterations of ‘Fargo’.  Hurry to your nearby multiplex for a cool, dark, humorous experience.