150.
The Snowman
7/10
Yet another film based on a novel, but for some reason, not
the first in the series. Instead, this will be the 7th instalment in the story
of a detective called Harry Hole. The trailer is very promising, with a serial
killer on the loose, replacing their victim's heads with the head of a snowman.
Michael Fassbender is playing Harry Hole, in this crime thriller, which is also
being classified as a horror too. I haven't read the source material, but the
book is being hailed as the best in the series. With a very, very decent
looking cast, this movie could have quite a few things going for it. I may have
spoiled something for myself with the trailer. When I looked at the cast
listings, I seen Val Kilmer's name, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen within
the trailer itself. Could this mean that he is our prime suspect? So, onto the
watch. Will this movie leave us with a terrible cold or will be barely be a
crisp wind?
The movie begins, with a child and his mother living in a
remote house in the snow and a cop pulls up. The three sit around the table and
he begins questioning the young boy about the history of Norway. With each
answer that is wrong, his mother gets a slap across the head. You can tell that
this is the origin story of the murderer. So many cases are put down to a bad
upbringing and some sort of trauma in their childhood. This is carried on
through his mother going to bed with this man and after the deed, telling him
that he is going to tell his son who his father is. The boy over hears this and
runs out into the snow, as the policeman flees and the mother puts her son in
the car and drives onto a frozen lake, seemingly expressionless. There were
some weird camera angles used to follow the car to its destination, one's that
made the scene look very fake. The boy gets out of the car and watches as his
mother sinks, to end her suffering and leave her son to defend for himself. We
fast forward to present day and find Harry Hole passed out in a kid's park,
walking to work and sitting in the canteen. One thing we notice about him is
that he is a solitary man, moving any other chairs away from his table, so that
no one else could sit with him. His boss walks in to tell him that he cannot
keep defending him and covering for him when he has one of these nights of drinking.
A new female detective has joined the force and has been studying Hole's case
files from years back. She is kind of an admirer for his work and when she goes
to work on a disappearance case, Harry too, goes along. We have already seen
the happenings as a woman is making her way home from work, been pelted with a
snowball in a car park and she is followed by a car and as she pulls over to
let it pass, it too pulls over and then speeds off. When she gets home, she
notices her daughter through the window, who is clearly waiting for her mother
isn't home yet. The mother walks through the garden and sees a snowman so texts
her daughter about it, to which the daughter has no clue about, so the mother
takes a picture. The camera pans out a little to show the car that was first
following this woman, is now parked across the road. We know that this is going
to be out first main case. Slowly, the camera turns to a point of view shot and
footsteps coming up the stairs. Instantly, we think that this is going to be
our murderer, but it's the father/husband. He isn't best pleased, as his wife
walks through the door, making him late for his appointment elsewhere. The
child is put to bed and the woman reads in her own, until a snowball hits her
window as the scenario moves on as the child wakes up the next morning to a
cold house, one that she cannot find her mother in but sees a snowman outside
with her mother's scarf around its neck.
Once the two arrive at the house, with Harry staying in the
car and Katrine leading the questions with the Husband. Harry takes it on
himself to have a look around and question the young girl. She lets on that
there were problems in the marriage, before the conversation is spoilt by
Katrine's phone going off in the doorway, as she eavesdrops. The story flips
back 9 years, to another city where a murderer is being chased in a case. The
main detective in this is Val Kilmer, the guy that I thought would be the
murderer anyways after the trailer. He's a drunk, who finds a body cut up in the
ice. In the end, the case gets the best of him and he goes to a wooden hut and
kills himself. As soon as it's mentioned that he has a daughter, I can guess
that the girl is Katrine. Harry's house is being done for damp and as he gets
out and about, a call comes in about as missing woman. They head off to
investigate and they both come across a woman working in her shed, who is
actually the woman who is meant to be missing. As they drive away, they know
something is up and turn back around but by the time they get back, we have
already been treated to the murderer making easy work of his latest victim. On
a second arrival, they find her body and later her head, put onto the top of a
snowman's body. In the meantime, some side stories arise, with the city looking
at a bid for the winter Olympics and we meet Harry's ex-girlfriend and her son.
She now has a new boyfriend and seems a stand-up gentleman, just trying to be a
father figure for her son and trying to get on with Harry. The son though,
prefers Harry and even after being let down several times, he still agrees to
go to a concert with him for his birthday.We can see that Harry is thinking about Katrine's hidden agenda of proving that her father didn't kill himself. In an earlier scene, she had followed him into an auditorium, where he in introduced to a female, who has her top taken off her and then she is lead away by a well know doctor. The doctor is then questioned by the two, the next day, on arrival, they see a woman looking through a small window, although the doctor says that he is home alone. He gets agitated when questioned and soon demands a warrant, until they leave. They come to the conclusion that the doctor is the snowman but just as they head to arrest him, he is found dead, in his garage, in a staged killing that makes him look like it was suicide, in exactly the same way that Katrine's father's body was found. Soon the attention moves to Arve, Simmons' character once more. He enjoys sleeping with many woman and is determined to be the father of a few kids already, including the woman who was beheaded already. The two get invited to a party around the time of the announcement for the Olympics, which the city win. All the time, J.K Simmons' character, who is leading the way for the city's bid, is being introduced to young women, who he randomly takes close up pictures off before ushering the off. One of them being an undercover Katrine, who later gets him room key on invite for the after party. Inside the room, she waits to confront him, but instead is attacked by the killer anyway.
Harry is on his way to the cabin where Katrine's father had
killed himself, to prove that it was staged, which he does. On the train there,
he bumps into his ex's new boyfriend, who reminds him that Harry is supposed to
be on a trip with the boy. Harry is angry that he forgotten but this guy,
Mathias, rings his girlfriend and says that it was his fault and he missed the
message. Good guy. As the story moves on, Katrine is now out of the picture
from her injuries so Harry leads the investigation himself now and the only
link they can find between it all is that the women all went to the same
doctor. That doctor being Mathias. A few people are in uproar with this reveal.
They explain how it is nothing like the suspense created within the book. By
the time Harry gets to his Ex's apartment to save her, they have already been
taken, and a phone call confirms that he has taken them. A car chase ensues and
with each turn, the cars flip from being Mathias' to Harry's. In Mathias'
apartment, the drawing and pictures were exactly the same as his childhood home
from the beginning of the movie and this is where we are taken next. As Harry
walks down the stairs into the kitchen to see the young boy tied up in the same
seat as Mathias from the beginning, he walks around the room and Mathias has
his back to him. Walking around the table, it reveals the mother, that Mathias
has been standing behind and now it’s time to some personal questions for
Harry. Each one he has wrong means that the rope around the woman's neck gets
tighter. There are flashbacks to the beginning of the movie, but this time it
is going to be someone else's mother who will be hurt. A scuffle commences as
Harry grabs this wired rope with his little finger, which gets cuts off and
Matias makes it to the door with Harry's gun. He doesn't follow straight away,
but makes sure the two are ok before heading after the murderer. Finally, he
decided to run, unarmed, after and armed man, into the woods. Finding himself
on a frozen lake and maybe the one from the beginning, Harry gets shot. On the
floor, bleeding, Mathias walks towards him, with Harry hoping he takes a few
more steps, which he does, cracking through some thin ice and into the depths.
As he sinks, we see the face of his childhood self, going down into the depths.
I quite enjoyed this movie, but nowhere near as much as I
thought I would. I was glad that I hadn't spoilt who the murderer was, by
looking into the trailer a little too much and because I had focused on Kilmer
too much, I totally missed any signs of who the main suspect actually was. I
haven't read any of the books, let alone this one, so I have no idea if it was
close to the source material or not. It wastes no time in character development
and gets straight to the point with a lot of the case points too. But at the
same time, with quite a few strong characters, there seems to be no substance
other than simply to add to the main plot. The main thing that totally baffled
me was the use of Val Kilmer. When I was watching it, I knew something was up
with the acting and it turns out that his voice had been dubbed! I would have
enjoyed a bit more suspense at times and there is no real explanation of why
certain things are happening. On the reverse side, this movie can be enjoyable
for many people because it is easy to follow and so informative for its
viewers. There is never a point where is beats around the bush. The scenery and
location are beautiful and adds to the coldness of the murderer and cases files.
The first half of the movie showed a lot of promise but as the suspects and
story carried through, it did get a little messy. It has plenty of room for
improvements but I'm not too sure if we will ever see any more in the series.
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