Cold Pursuit Review

"The trap is set. The fuse is lit. Liam Neeson's unleashed. Death Wish 6: On Ice"

Or at least that's what it plays out onscreen like. Liam's newest film, "Cold Pursuit," confirms his resurgence is no fluke; he is this generation's Charles Bronson. Take the plot: it's about a man seeking vengeance when his son is found dead on a purported heroin overdose. He ends up getting ensnared in a nearby drug lord's murky plot, and inadvertently leads to the involvement of another nearby drug lord! It's a complete retread of the five "Death Wish" films, as well as a few others for color, and condenses them into a quick and zippy 118 minute joyride. It may be completely unoriginal, but it's a terrific comedic thriller. It's bloody, packed with creative deaths that only occasionally shy away from showing the spewing blood (even if the death's offscreen, you see the splatter of crismon spray onto the nearby snow). There are, naturally, ample amounts of drug-dealers (though no real visible drug use), though a true trashy vigilante flick would have found any excuse to show some nudity; hey, it's big-budget exploitation film, I wasn't expecting anything classy.

We follow Liam's character Nelson Coxman (don't bother making jokes, the film does that for you), who's just been awarded his vacation town's "Citizen of the Year" award. He's just the snowplow guy, he recites during this acceptance speech, living a modest life with his wife Grace (Laura Dern, who has about two scenes before disappearing), and their only son, who works at the local airport before being kidnapped and killed, his death guised as a heroin overdose.

Why his son was killed is irrelevant and passively mentioned once or twice, and serves better as a clothesline of oddball baddies to be shot up by Liam, gang 1 and gang 2. Perhaps the only disappointing thing is how much of the bloodshed is dished out by one gang to the other, Neeson nowhere to be seen, but hey, it's fun trash nonetheless. What's worth pointing out is how every criminal is known by a ridiculous nickname, ranging from "Wingman" to, my personal favorite, "Santa."

Of course, the deaths catch the attention of the local police, led by the curious and spunky Emmy Rossum as Kim and the curiously passive John Doman as Gip. She's eager for some action in the sleepy little town (not unlike Sandra Bullock's character in "Demolition Man"), and makes all sorts of calls to dig up anything she can on the murders. Gip, for no obvious reason, is disinterested in disappearances; I was waiting for a "corrupted cop" moment but alas, no such luck. There's all the obligatory scenes between Coxman and the cops, where right after he drops a body in the river (wrapped in chicken wire, so, he explains, "the fish can eat the flesh off the bones and prevent the bodies from floating... I read it in a detective novel"), only for nothing to happen except to recap the exposition on the police's side of the story.

There's a comedic charge in every bit of dialogue, helped immensely by these humorous monikers, though having the head drug lord "Viking" (Tom Bateman) arguing with his henchmen about the dangers of "high fructose corn syrup" when one of them tries slipping a few cookies in his son's lunch pale, doesn't hurt either. It's bits like this, frequent and always unexpected, that separate "Cold Pursuit" from Liam's previous "The Commuter," as well as the recent "Death Wish" remake and the now two years old "The Foreigner." The sense of humor doesn't always hit its mark, but with actor's unbridled commitment to seriousness, every quip and each goofy death seem to miss deliberately. I laughed, for sure, more so than I probably should have, but the nearly packed audience often chuckled right along side me. It isn't a matter of good taste, because this film is about a far away from that as they come, but it is a good time. A downright slapdash and energetically outrageous good time, this is cinema certainly not in it's finest, but definitely in its most unorthodox and entertaining.