'COLD PURSUIT' which I saw this week is an American action thriller Directed by Norwegian film maker Hans Petter Moland whose previous Directorial credits include 'Zero Kelvin', 'Aberdeen', 'The Beautiful Country' and 2014's 'In Order of Disappearance' - which marked his fourth film with Stellan Skarsgard. And so in 2019 for an English speaking audience, we have a sort of remake of 'In Order of Disappearance', his own film from five years ago and based on the script penned by Danish Writer, Illustrator and Screenwriter Kim Fupz Aakeson. The film was released in the US and Australia last week, and in the UK on the 22nd of this month, has received generally positive press, and has recouped US$20M of its US$60M production budget so far.
And so to the plot. Here Nelson 'Nels' Coxman's (Liam Neeson) quiet life as a snowplough driver in his Canadian Rocky Mountains remote resort hometown of Kehoe is bittersweet. First up, as the film opens we see him getting dressed up in collar & tie, shirt & cufflinks aided by his wife Grace (Laura Dern), to attend a ceremony to be awarded Kehoe's 'Citizen of the Year'.
Then a few days later comes the tragic news that his beloved son Kyle (Michael Richardson) has died under mysterious circumstances, which the autopsy soon reveals was a heroin overdose. But Nels states that his son was no druggie, so how can that possibly be. After the funeral, Grace becomes distant from Nels upon discovering things about their son they never knew - that he had a social media account, the music he liked to listen to, his favourite films and so on, which makes them wonder how well they really did known their son. Ultimately, in her grief, Grace leaves Nels.
Santa (Michael Adamthwaite) some time later drives through thick deep snow heading toward Kehoe, followed menacingly close behind by Nels driving his snowplough. Nels takes a right turn and disappears out of sight much to Santa's relief, only to emerge some minutes later ahead of Santa's vehicle and now blocking his way. Nels siddles up to Santa's car and orders him to back up so that he can pass, but instead Santa offers him a couple of hundred dollar bills to move his snowplough, Of course this only serves to annoy the hell out of Nels who through the side window smashes Santa's head against the steering wheel and then pulls him out onto the blade of his snowplough and proceeds to beat the crap out of him with his bare fists, ultimately using his shotgun to dispense with the perpetrator. Nels then slices open ten one kilo bags of cocaine and lets each one blow away in the wind and onto the driven snow.
Meanwhile whilst Nels has been preoccupied with some random killings all linked it seems to his sons death, Trevor 'Viking' Calcote (Tom Bateman) - a local drug lord based out of Denver, has grown very suspicious over the sudden and as yet unexplained disappearance of three of his henchmen. Viking has a young son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) who attends private school, and whom he shares custody with this estranged wife Aya (Julia Jones) who argue and bicker every time they see each other mostly over visiting rights and the manner in which her soon to be ex-husband chooses to raise their son. Viking lives in a very modern sprawling house, seemingly with a small army of his henchmen who are at his beck and call, and who came through the ranks of the family 'business' when it was ruled over by Viking's revered father.
Viking has suspicions that the unconfirmed deaths of his drug dealing and smuggling goons are the work of a Native American drug cartel controlled by White Bull (Tom Jackson), with whom he has earlier avoided conflict due to a deal initiated by Viking's late father many years ago, and which both sides have steadfastly upheld since . . . . . until now! In retaliation, Viking captures White Bull's only son, interrogates him by beating him near to death and then puts a bullet between his eyes. This sparks a gang war between the two factions which is further sparked when White Bull's dead son is strung up on a mileage signpost on the outskirts of town to be discovered by a local young female detective Kimberly Dash (Emmy Rossum) and her ageing partner Gip (John Doman).
Viking eventually learns that Coxman has killed his men, and tries in vain to call off the gang war which he mistakenly started while not realising that White Bull intends to wreak his revenge through a blood debt - 'blood for blood, a son for a son'. Viking in the interim has mistakenly identified Brock Coxman, instead of Nels Coxman, as the killer of his three henchmen and so goes in search of him, locating him in his mountain side home and taking him for a ride in his Tesla from which he'll never return. Meanwhile, Nels kidnaps Viking's son from his prep school in an attempt to draw the drug lord into an ambush. Unknown to Nels, two of White Bull's men were also waiting at the school ready to kidnap Ryan, and seeing Nels walk off with the young lad give chase. Nels manages to evade them and drives the boy to his home. Viking learns that his son has been kidnapped and becomes increasingly agitated by the lack of contact from the kidnapper. Nels decides to let Viking stew until the morning. He also learns from an orderly at the school who witnessed Nels drive off with Ryan and as such was able to identify him, and now sat in front of Viking wants some reward for the information. Viking happily takes the mans intelligence, and then has his henchmen kill him.
During the ensuing shootout, most of the gangsters on both sides are killed. Viking's getaway attempt is thwarted when his car is crushed by a rapidly shorn tree trunk dropped on his car from a height, courtesy of a quick thinking Nels, and is then shot in the chest by White Bull. Viking later dies shortly after being found amongst the carnage by the Kehoe Police Detectives Dash and Gip. As Coxman leaves the property in his snowplough to go back to work, White Bull jumps into the cab and the two men drive away together.
In quite enjoyed 'Cold Pursuit' and here you can expect to see Liam Neeson doing absolutely what he does best, a la 'Taken', 'A Walk Among The Tombstones', 'The Commuter', 'The Grey', 'Unknown', 'Run All Night' and 'Non Stop' et al. But Director Hans Petter Moland has crafted a film that combines just the right amount of wit and dead pan gallows humour with a sure footed story of revenge, drug barons, mistaken identity, a hero on the edge, a villain unhinged and a high body count all combined with the backdrop of the snow swept Rockies. It's a fun ride that has some clear underlying messages about racism, minority groups, greed, drugs, money, violence and relationships but because the body count rises so steeply there is barley time to get invested in the characters before they've exited stage left. Nonetheless, certainly worth a look, and Neeson and Moland don't disappoint. Didn't someone once say 'revenge is a dish best served cold' - how true!'Cold Pursuit' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five.
-Steve, at Odeon Online-
