Review of Cold Pursuit (2019) by Andrewmakatsari — 08 Apr 2016

Hardcore Henry is the best video-game movie, not based on any game; it is also the most unflinching, original, breathtakingly inventive and giddily exciting ride of the year, making full use of its great concept , superb technique , pushing it past its gimmicky roots and making one hell of an Indie Action Classic.

The most impressive aspect of Hardcore is the pacing and how the actors, the director/screenwriter go about to deliver it swiftly, edited to perfection and performed brilliantly. Henry is immensely humanized, considering the fact that his face is obstructed throughout the whole film and is mute, yet through mannerisms and motions, writer/director Ilya Naishuller gives Henry a unique and often times funnily badass personality one that is sympathetic for the audience to root for and play as. Meanwhile Sharlto Copley, brilliantly jumps from various, engaging and weirdly fascinating characters, it’s definitely hard to pull of so many different characters and retain significance and constantly come up with witty performance tricks that get either get the audience’s blood pumping or get their interests peeking. Danila Kozlovsky plays an exceptional villain, one that is perverted, hyper-stylized, yet gets to pull one or two of his own great gags that evoke a feeling of fear and comedy. Whilst Haley Bennett is charming and convincing as the wife of Henry, wanting his safety and security, and hiding secrets under the façade of love and compassion. The story is great too, it is strange, exciting and un-logical in the best possible way, drawing inspirations from various video-games and providing them with a new perspective.

However it’s the action in Hardcore Henry that is the most important, full of adrenaline, kinetic energy and meaty violence, Naishuller makes even the shakiest of images stable and clear using long takes of sweeping carnage and choreography that gives The Raid films a run for their money. In particular a wild, on-rails motorcycle chase with a minigun is not only awesome on its own, with passages through enemy vehicles and tearing of enemies with the high-caliber bullets that shred the forces of AKAN into pieces and thrill with unparalleled ferocity and drive. The Brothel shootout is mind-blowing too, full of utterly spectacular gun-fu action, that is punctuated by the picture’s bucket load of guts and blood, with a little of misogyny which is always pleasant to see in today’s Ultra-feminist society. The last 30 minutes of Hardcore are pure insanity and a barrage of almost gratuitous violence, head explosions, decapitations, savage beat downs and wall to wall action that had my heart pumping and sweat dropping at an almost alarming rate. Made even cooler and jaw-dropping by the fantastic score of the Director’s band “Biting Elbows”, being their long-time fan, it was sweetly energizing to hear some of their new tracks at just the right moments to give the action even more punch, and yes Queen’s “Don’t stop me now” is also here and yes that scene is the best part of the movie.

Hardcore is as advertised a cinematic breakthrough and a terrific endeavor from the Russians, that created something truly new and exciting, it is a masterpiece of an action film, made impressively immersive by its POV style and engrossing by its story, plot, and characters, Kudos to Naishuller and his team for making this work. It is worth every cent of every dollar and even my 5 dollar donation back in 2014.