Posted in: Movies, Review | Tagged: film, movie, Review, snowman, val kilmer

The Snowman Review: The Crime Of Making A Dull Thriller

The Snowman is said to be based on a novel of the same name by author Jo Nesbo. That the film was developed into a script in the first place would seem to indicate that the original must had some merit as a crime thriller. Unfortunately what is releasing this weekend is so disjointed and droll that it will probably result in a steep drop in book sales.

Snowman had everything possible going for it: a solid cast led by Michael Fassbender, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Michael Rebecca Ferguson, Val Kilmer, Toby Jones, James D'Arcy, and J.K. Simmons. It was directed by Let the Right One In's Thomas Afredson (we're talking the good version, not the American remake), and the lead producer is none other than Martin Scorsese. But then there's the fact that there's three writers, and multiple editors, neither of which tend to bode well (and really shouldn't be needed when the story was already written in it's novel form).

Fassbender plays the stock character of ace homicide detective who has problems with drinking and has separated from his girlfriend (Gainsbourg) while still trying to play dad to her son. The unoriginality in that alone speaks volumes of what is to come, and combine it with his unintentionally humorous name (Harry Hole) just sets the tone. Set in Oslo, Norway, the town doesn't have a lot of opportunity to do this thing (it feels like he just sits around and waits for the rare occasion for someone to die). Enter a new detective, Katrine Bratt (played by Ferguson), who opens up her dialogue with Hole by saying, "we studied your cases at the academy."

They begin investigating a series of missing women, which quick turns out to reveal that Oslo has what appears to be its first serial killer. Near each disappearance the killer makes creepy little snowmen to leave as a calling card. There's another plotline involving an industrialist (played by Simmons) helping Oslo making their bid for the Winter Olympic Games. Then there's another one which is a flashback to earlier similar murders which features Kilmer as another has-been detective struggling to catch the killer back then as well.

Neither of those sidelines are done in ways which makes them fundamentally necessary to the main modern day thread. All it does is serve to disjoint the story (and not in a good way). There's whole scenes that happen that then get dropped and never connected back into the narrative. The end result is that we don't really care about the killer when they're revealed, or Harry, or anyone else in the film. The only strong emotion is pity for Kilmer who looks terrible (he's had his health problems), but he's also had his voice dubbed over. It makes us wonder why they used him in such a role.

There are no jump scares, there's a bit of gore with the mechanism that the killer uses to dismember his victims, but mostly it's just dull; even by the time we get to the big showdown there's no real tension because the audience realizes that they've never been give a reason to care about any of the characters.

The novel is actually the number 7 out of 11 in the Harry Hole series (just writing that phrase made me giggle), and if they intend to do more they should perhaps go back to the beginning, and hope we've all forgotten about this one by the time it lands. Or maybe as a Netflix series.

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