Review of Cold Pursuit (2019) by Lcamoviereviews — 18 Apr 2019

It’s that time of year again. A Liam Neeson lead action thriller. But, this is not what I was expecting. The trailer made this look like another run of the mill, Neeson lead film. Not that there is anything wrong with that cause I am a big fan of his films.

The structure of this film and how it plays out is actually something completely different then his other revenge like films. The film opens with Neeson’s character, Neil Coxman, a snowplow driver working the streets in the cold but actually quite beautiful Kehoe in the Rocky Mountains.

Laura Dern plays his wife, whose role here is very short lived and disappears about a half hour to forty five minutes into the film, never to be seen again. Neil wins the award for “Citizen of the Year”, but shortly after, his son is kidnapped after working a shift at the airport and is later found dead in the middle of downtown Denver.

Once Neil and his wife are told their son has died of a drug overdose, Neil is already suspicious. He is sure that his son was not a druggie. His wife does not take things well and eventually leaves him.

This is where the film picks up steam as Neeson receives information about what happened to his son and begins hunting down each person. This leads to some great, actual comedic like sequences of him toying with these men before he ultimately kills them.

I thought this was a great touch and was really surprised by the darker humor throughout this film. Even the film ends on a dark humor moment that fits perfectly. The structure of this film is also quite well done.

For about a half hour, we get Neeson hunting and killing lots of men to try and get info leading to the big man in charge, but what’s nice here is we get plenty of scenes with the film’s villain, played by Tom Bateman.

It allows you to get to know the dirt bag behind it all and see just how bad of a person he really is. One of the biggest jokes or shall I say, running moments through the film is after each person’s death, we are treated to a title card of their name with some music.

Quite the nice touch. The action sequences are well done and the dark humor is quite good. I was really glad this film was different then Neeson’s previous work. I thought we were getting another “Taken” or “Run all Night”, but this is far from it.

It is a enjoyable film that has just the right amount of action and humor.