Cold Pursuit/In Order Of Disappearance

And Snow Crew

Upon seeing ads for “Cold Pursuit” while in prison, I knew I’d like to see it one day. Liam Neeson as a snow plow driver out for revenge? Of course, right? Later, I realized it was a remake, so it would be perfect to group with other redos as I’ve done here. But of course that would mean seeing the original. As luck would have it, “In Order Of Disappearance” also came out while I was in prison. It was humbling to realize that movies that came out while I was in custody were old enough to earn a remake while I remained in custody.

Hans Petter Moland directed “In Order Of Disappearance”, which hails from snowy Norway. The leading man is an old face to American moviegoers, the great Stellan Skarsgaard. Skarsgaard has been in the MCU and he has been a regular collaborator with Lars Von Trier. The guy entertained kids as part of the “Pirates Of The Caribbean”, but he’s old enough to have appeared in seventies sleaze like “Anita: Swedish Nymphet”. Truly, a man of great accomplishments.

As Nils, Skarsgaard begins the narrative of the film finding out that his son has died of a heroin overdose. The authorities go through the motions, but Nils is immediately skeptical, noting that his son did not use drugs at all. He begins to sniff around, finding sets of surly and shady characters who knew his son. His discovery is that his son’s death was a hit meant for someone else, so Nils begins a bloody path of vengeance. It feels like a Nordic joke that the grieving, and altogether ordinary Nils easily steps into the role of a killing machine. Chance encounters between Nils and low-level henchmen lead to them underestimating him, and Skarsgaard, stoic but still a bit baby-faced even in his later years, methodically and sloppily murdering them.

The film begins to shift perspective late in Act One, and we see a network of low level thugs begin to grasp that their kind is being killed by a regular dad-type who drives a snowplow. Obviously, they fail to take him seriously, which allows Nils some wiggle room to manipulate enough relationships to twist and break alliances. There is a lead villain, the persnickety Greven, who is outspoken about personal health and a code of honor, despite immediately contradicting his own words with violence and brutality. At one point, a comic scene between himself and his wife turns dark immediately as the movie doesn’t shy from the fact he abuses women.

The movie has a slow and steady rhythm, even though Norwegian audiences probably felt this was the equivalent of fast and furious. Nils gradually works his way up the chain while these gangsters begin to turn on each other, and as bodies collect it seems as if he’s merely walking between them. The action is mostly wanton murder, with bodies going squish and crash as stone faced Norweigians look on. As far as cheap foreign film thrills, this is as good as you’ll get, a deadpan celebration of vigilante justice.

Moland returned to direct “Cold Pursuit”, this time calling for durable old man action hero Liam Neeson to fill the boots of the best Skarsgaard as a snowplow driver in Colorado instead. Not to knock Skarsgaard, but it’s a funnier casting choice because the movie is clearly trading on Neeson’s reputation as an action staple. Neeson doesn’t play his character Nels (subtle difference!) as one of his intimidating tough guys, but rather as a disconsolate father who can’t be bothered to pay attention to the fact he’s become a killing machine. It’s not important to him to kill these bad guys, he’s just trying to extract important information, and, oops, that guy died horribly didn’t he, oh well, moving on. In the first film, it’s a joke that he drives a snowplow. Here, the joke is, that’s Liam Neesons from the “Takens” driving a snow plow.

The lead mobster is a man named Viking, played by alpha male jerk Tom Bateman. Bateman is also more overtly comedic, while still maintaining a sense of menace, whether he’s ordering a hit or yelling to his ex-wife about their son’s unhealthy school lunch options. Similar to the original, his priorities seem to be his child, then his drug operation, and a distant third is the idea his henchmen are being picked off. There’s a scene where he recruits a hitman, and the two jaw about political correctness and then business etiquette in a scene that subtly builds to an act of violence. Tellingly, the American remake has him trying to beat his ex-wife and taking the hit instead, which, two-dimensionally, is a backpedal, but actually complicates the audience’s reading of him. Crime made him soft, and now he’s trying to overcompensate in the next direction. It’s one way to emphasize a generational split from Neeson, who is just too singleminded to care about niceties.

“Cold Pursuit” is a near-identical revision of the first film. Certain characters and scenes are fleshed out a bit – Viking’s son especially has a few precocious-kid quips that provide laughs regarding the not-too-competent help – “help” being people with shotguns. As a viewing experience within a bubble, “Cold Pursuit” is lighter and more engaging than the average Neeson joint. But it’s unfortunate that this is one of those American remakes that exists solely to please those who would never see the original film. Moland earned sweet American money to make his own film a second time with much of the script still intact. As far as hustles go, it’s not a bad one. But if you haven’t seen the original, then yes, you are being hustled.

All that snow reminded me of my last job in the federal system. Typically, when you arrive in prison, you are supposed to have a job. In some of my spots, you could secure a relatively decent profession that kept you busy and proved rewarding, even if you weren’t going to be making more than $100 a month (for work that was often close to full-time). But there are naturally more inmates than there are jobs. Often, most people are assigned to menial work in the cafeteria, or on the yard, where they’re meant to be picking up leaves, cleaning up trash.

I made enough trouble through the years that, at the very end, I was assigned to Snow Crew! This was my job. Snow Crew meant that, any time between the hours of 10 PM and 5 AM, I could be called whenever an officer liked to shovel snow. I will say, with some consternation, that there were plenty of times I was recruited at exactly 4:45 AM and forced to get out of bed to shovel, even if it had stopped snowing hours earlier. But this issue only arises during winter. For the rest of the year, I was on Snow Crew during entire months without a single snowflake, and I would go unbothered by staff. At one point I was a tutor constantly on-call, and I thought that meant something. In the end, I knew that the job you really want involved the least amount of interaction with the guards as possible. I made $5 a month.