The snow piercer pushing cold mass in winged snow drifts in the night chill is death and the driver is Liam Neeson but really revenge in Cold Pursuit. Death and revenge becomes Liam Neeson as it always does in the down drift of January and February releases. Mix in some Fargo, some Godfather and a lot of cowboys and Indians metaphors and Cold Pursuit is the best Neeson vehicle in years, probably the best of this early year.
Cold Pursuit is a remake of the director’s Hans Peter Moland Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance, English title) which had the same plot with Stellan Skarsgaard performing the revenge duties. The original English title is a clue to Cold Pursuit’s better inter-title chilly gags. This is black humor at its finest, a revenge flick best served cold as every Star Trek fan knows, filled with mordantly poetic dialogue delivered with the chilliest punchlines, a Yojimbo homage disguised in the American Western every European auteur secretly lusts to make.
Neeson is at his finest playing his own action metaphor. Moland gets to perfect his own recreation. Winter gets a fall surprise. And screen death welcomes us all.
Photos courtesy of Lionsgate Films.
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