Cold Pursuit

Dir: Hans Petter Moland

2019

*****

For anyone wanting or expecting another Liam Neeson revenge action film, then this is the film for you, because this isn’t just another Liam Neeson revenge action film - it’s so much better. Indeed, Neeson himself has stated that this is his last action film and I think it’s a hell of a way to leave the genre. I knew nothing about the film before watching but I assumed it would be another film in the ilk of Unknown, Taken (preferably more like the first one and less like the third) and The Grey (if we were really lucky). At first I found the film to be clumsy, lacking in emotion and a bit of a mess. I wondered why a film maker would cast Liam Neeson and Laura Dern and not have them act. However, as the film progressed I realised all was not what it seemed. This was a black comedy, verging on satire, and about as quirky as quirky gets. I’m not a big fan of American remakes of ‘foreign’ films, but I do make exception when the remake is written and directed by the original director. I was unaware of Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland but he is definitely on my radar now and I will certainly catch up with his 2014 original In Order of Disappearance. This isn’t Fargo either, but I’m sure it will appeal to those that like The Coen Brothers. After being awarded "Citizen of the Year" by the ski resort of Kehoe, Colorado, snowplow driver Nels Coxman's (Neeson) quiet life is disrupted when his son (played by Neeson’s real life son Micheál Richardson) dies from a forced heroin overdose. Nels' wife Grace (Laura Dern) has a psychotic breakdown and leaves her husband in grief. He is about to commit suicide when he learns that his son was murdered by a Denver drug cartel. Instead of killing himself, he decides to seek vigilante justice, saws the end off of his rifle, and kills three members of the cartel, dumping their bodies in a nearby river. The cartel's leader, drug lord Trevor "Viking" Calcote (a wonderfully unhinged Tom Bateman), first suspects that these deaths are the work of his rival White Bull (Tom Jackson), an Ute with whom he has so far avoided conflict. Viking has one of Bull's gangsters murdered, not knowing it is Bull's only son. This drives Bull to seek revenge ("a son for a son"), and he orders his men to kidnap Viking's young son. Nels seeks advice from his brother Brock (William Forsythe), once a mob enforcer known as "Wingman", and learns about Viking. Brock tells Nels that killing Viking requires a hired assassin, and recommends a transplanted African American hitman known as "the Eskimo". The Eskimo agrees to kill Viking for $90,000, but decides he can get another $90,000 from Viking by informing him that "Coxman" has hired him for the hit. Viking doesn't appreciate the Eskimo's "lack of professional ethics" and kills him. He thinks the Eskimo meant Brock Coxman, and takes him for his "last ride". Since Brock is dying of cancer, he takes responsibility for the hits to protect his brother. Viking tries in vain to stop the gang war by using one of his own men as a scapegoat and sending White Bull the man's head. This is insufficient to placate Bull, who kills the messenger. Meanwhile, Nels kidnaps Viking's son from his prep school before Bull's men can, in order to draw Viking into an ambush. Nels treats the boy well and protects him from the violence to come, but his identity is revealed to Viking by a Janitor in the prep school. Both gangs arrive at Nels' workplace, and most of them are killed in the ensuing shootout; Viking is trapped when Nels drops a shorn tree on his car, and is shot in the chest by White Bull. He dies when found by Kehoe police detectives Kimberly Dash and Gip (Emmy Rossum and John Doman) who have been following the case, always three steps behind. As Nels leaves the property in his snowplow to continue his work, White Bull jumps into the cab and the two men drive away together. Bull's last remaining enforcer, who had set off on a paragliding flight from the ski resort hotel where the gang stayed the night before, accidentally flies into the snowplow and is killed. The story twists and turns as each character reveals themselves to me more than what they first appear and intense moments of violence are followed by laugh-out-loud moments of surreal oddness. Because the film is so unexpectedly kooky, the often stunning direction can be overlooked. It’s many things, but I would argue that it is one of the most visually pleasing films of 2019. Why it took two years to be released is a bit of a mystery but why it wasn’t as popular as it should have been is obvious and frustrating. During a press junket promoting the film, Neeson spoke of an incident in his past. Neeson explained his character's primal anger to the interviewer by recounting an experience he had many years ago. A woman close to him said she had been raped by a stranger, and Neeson asked what color skin the attacker had; after learning the attacker was black, Neeson said that for about a week, he "went up and down areas with a cosh ... hoping some 'black bastard' would come out of a pub and have a go" so that Neeson "could kill him". In the interview, Neeson also said he was "ashamed" to recount the experience and that it was "horrible" that he did what he did. "It's awful ... but I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, 'What the fuck are you doing?'” It was a very personal story to admit but the kids on twitter didn’t stop to think about what it was that Neeson was trying to say and so jerked their knees and labelled the actor a racist. The red carpet premiere of the film was promptly cancelled. Everyone remembers the comments he made but no one remembers what the film was he was there to promote and thanks to twitter all of Neeson’s films were heavily boycotted. Neeson later elaborated on his experience on TV. He denied being a racist, saying the incident occurred nearly 40 years ago, explaining that he asked for physical attributes of the rapist other than race, and that he would have done the same if the rapist was "a Scot or a Brit or a Lithuanian", that he had purposely gone into "black areas of the city", and that he "did seek help" from a priest after coming to his senses. Neeson said that the lesson of his experience was "to open up, to talk about these things", as there was still underlying "racism and bigotry" in both the United States and Northern Ireland. It amazes me that social media, a forum for discussion, has become almost the opposite. To miss his clear point for discussion and see his comments only as racist, shows the lack of thought process in our current society. It annoys me on many different levels, but regarding this film, it has nothing to do with it and so many people who worked hard on making a brilliant film, all lost out because people are too thick to understand a simple story of regret. I digress. It’s such a wonderfully strange film that I found it irresistible. It’s a real gem and one of the most pleasant of pleasant surprises in recent years.