Cold Pursuit (2019)
(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Producers apparently aren’t done with Liamsploitation film, apparently, and neither am I: if you want to cast sixty-something Liam Neeson as a plow truck driver going on a rampage of revenge against the local mob for killing his son, then be my guest. But Cold Pursuit does have a slightly different flavour from other Liamsploitation films. The setting, high up in the snowy mountains, is distinctive enough. But it’s the tone of the film, adapted from Norwegian action film Kraftidioten, that makes it as distinctive as The Grey was. Here, we get a revenge story served as a very dark comedy, from distinctive angles chosen by director Hans Petter Moland (who also directed the original) to visually scratching out the names of the (many) deceased as they are taken out of the story. It’s a bit of flourish over what could have been a very familiar story of grieving dads, mob war, escalating revenge and baroque death scenes. It’s certainly watchable, and perhaps (due to its off-beat tone) slightly more memorable than other comparable Liamsploitation films. At some point, we can all have fun seeing Neeson plowing into other guys all movie long. Wait, that didn’t come out right…