Review of Cold Pursuit (2019) by Rebecca31 — 14 Apr 2016

A remake of the 2014 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance, Hans Petter Moland has returned to direct Cold Pursuit. Snow plough driver and citizen of the year Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson) is your average family man, living the simple life with his wife (Laura Dern) in Kehoe. So when his son is brutally murdered by drug dealers no one really expects quiet Nels to do anything about it. But as we all know this is Liam Neeson and you don't need me to tell you what happens to anyone who messes with his family. .

Alright I know this all sounds familiar (yes I'm looking at you Taken and pretty much every other Liam Neeson film in the last ten years). It's been done before but are we bored with it? No, of course not. A revenge thriller will always bring in a crowd and under normal circumstances Liam Neeson will also bring in his fanbase. The internet may be done with Liam Neeson but if you enjoy action films at all then Cold Pursuit is not to be missed. Quirky and reminiscent of The Coen Brothers the most obvious being Fargo. It finds the perfect balance between action and dark humour. It's funny and it's violent, it also benefits hugely from having the original director take control of this remake. One by one Neeson starts taking out the people responsible for his son's death eventually directing him to a drug lord known as "Viking" (Tom Bateman). Bateman plays Viking with the chaotic energy of a crazed gangster, whose next move is extremely unpredictable creating a constant sense of unease whenever he is onscreen. As each and every supporting character is introduced they get more ludicrous, a lot of these generic revenge stories often have boring and forgettable supporting characters with all the effort put into the main character but Cold Pursuit breaks this trend and is clearly better for it. Unlike the majority of Neeson's previous action films Cold Pursuit shifts a lot of the focus towards the other characters in the movie, sure Liam is the main plot point but the supporting cast push this film away from just being another generic revenge thriller. So what are you waiting for, you need a film to check out this weekend right? Award season is just about finished so there's no better film to see than Cold Pursuit. Highly recommended.