Sometimes you need a good Liam Neeson movie, even if it’s a B-movie, or a direct-to-Netflix movie, because sometimes those movie have just enough–just enough Liam Neeson, or just enough action. Unfortunately The Ice Roadis not a good Liam Neeson movie, nor is it even salvageable as an action movie. I wrote a mixed review for Liam Neeson’s Cold Pursuit (reviewed here), which looks very much like The Ice Road if you believe the promotional materials, but somehow it’s more like the painfully bad, also wintry Polar or Daughter of the Wolf in its writing and execution. It’s two years since Neeson stated he was done with making movies, and audiences will keep watching until he gets another right, and since then we’ve seen him in Men in Black: International, a great use of Neeson, plus he’s made four more movies with six more in production. His fans have a lot to look forward to. but if this is what Ice Road Truckers is about, I’m glad I’ve never seen it. So why doesn’t The Ice Road work?
This is what I was hoping for in Jonas Åkerlund’s movie Polar, the brutal Mads Mikkelsen dark action movie that was more wannabe Zack Snyder than anything interesting, fun, or thought-provoking. Cold Pursuit is something like Polar. You’ll feel the cold, sure. But director Hans Petter Molland′s take on dark comedy is a little more subtle, less “look at me and all the carnage I can fit on a screen and have my characters laugh about.” But Cold Pursuit is also not the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. And that’s a good thing if you don’t worship Coen Brothers movies. It’s also a good thing if you like Fargo only a little bit.
What the heck am I talking about? Unlike a lot of films that go direct to streaming services, this was a theatrical release. You can tell the difference. So it beats out most direct-to-Netflix, Amazon, etc. fare. But Cold Pursuitwas marketed and billed more like a dark comedy. Only it’s not very funny. But it’s an enjoyable, satisfying revenge flick. So blame the marketing. Cold Pursuit is a steady, measured drama about a resourceful snowplow driver near Denver, played by Liam Neeson (sporting a Han Solo at Hoth parka), who is successful at his job, but less successful with his family relationships, including communicating with his wife, played rather blandly by Laura Dern (it’s the part, not the performer). When their son is murdered by a low-level member of the local drug community, Neeson’s character, Nels Coxman, first tries to kill himself. When he learns his kid wasn’t really involved in drugs he begins relentlessly pursuing everyone involved in the world that killed his son, aiming for the top, which reaches back to an anal-retentive, self-absorbed, young, wealthy kingpin called Viking back in the city, played expertly vile by Tom Bateman(Murder on the Orient Express). This is when the movie takes the action turn. Bateman plays that villain you love to hate and really want to see get a comeuppance.
Dozens of named characters get killed in different ways throughout the picture (I thought about counting the bodies but didn’t). Each cleverly gets their own pre-sound era cinema “tombstone” as they are marked off the list (including their religion–oddly irrelevant but humorous). Even if it’s a little spoliery (yes, that’s the correct spelling) to know it, if it helps get people to see the movie then it’s worth knowing that Neeson’s character is not a criminal type or tough guy, but calls forth that familiar guy from the Taken movies to open ample six-packs (several) of whoop-ass on the bad guys.
It’s not a Fast & Furious, or Deadpool, or Kickboxer movie like her past films, but mixed martial arts pro-turned-actor Gina Carano is getting her next leading role, following up on last year’s post-apocalypse B-movie, Scorched Earth. It’s called Daughter of the Wolf, a snowbound survival tale in the vein of Liam Neeson’s Taken movie series. Carano will soon co-star opposite Pedro Pascal in Lucasfilm’s live-action Star Wars series The Mandalorian, but first she’ll go head-to-head with iconic genre actor Richard Dreyfuss as her character fights to get her son back from a kidnapper and his accomplices.
Could Daughter of the Wolf be part of a trend of solo action films Carano adds to her portfolio, just as action stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jason Statham once stacked up a vast list of smaller action movies between co-starring stints in major films? Carano certainly has the physical prowess, style, and charisma to be tomorrow’s next action hero.
Take a look at this trailer for Daughter of the Wolf:
