ReviewCold Pursuit film review: Liam Neeson seeks violent vengeance, once again, in racially insensitive thriller

Director Hans Petter Moland tries to replicate the ironic tone and deadpan delivery of Coen Brothers films, but falls well short in this outing

The Tarantino-inspired mayhem is often more childish than witty

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Liam Neeson is out for revenge in Cold Pursuit (category IIB), directed by Hans Petter Moland. Tom Bateman co-stars. Photo: Doane Gregory

Published: 8:18pm, 11 Feb 2019Updated: 8:18pm, 11 Feb 2019

2/5 stars

Thanks to Liam Neeson’s recent racially charged remarks, Cold Pursuit may end up being the last film the ageing action hero makes – for a while, at least. It will not stand as one of his best. Although the actor’s downbeat performance is solid, the film falters because of an uneven tone which veers catastrophically from grim and bloody violence – of which there is a lot – to morbid black humour.

Director Hans Petter Moland, who based the film on his 2014 Norwegian movie In Order of Disappearance, tries to replicate the ironic tone and deadpan delivery of Coen Brothers films like Blood Simple and Fargo, with some Tarantino-inspired mayhem thrown in. But the result is more often childish than witty.

Cold Pursuit was adapted from the earlier film by American screenwriter Frank Baldwin, and it follows the original story very closely. Neeson plays Coxman (a pun that reflects the hero’s name “Dickman” in the original), a snowplough driver in freezing Colorado whose son is mistakenly killed by a gang of drug runners.

Taking justice into his own hands, Coxman kills his way up the gang’s chain of command until he reaches the slick and arrogant boss Viking (Tom Bateman). But neither side has stopped to consider a group of Native American gangsters who have their own grudge to settle with Viking. Murder and mayhem ensue, and each killing is marked with a symbol which flashes on the screen to denote the deceased’s ethnicity.