Crime thrillers are one of my favorite genres from both books and movies because the mystery delves you right into the characters' investigations, motives and the plot itself. There are great crime thrillers like Seven and The Silence of the Lambs and Chinatown that transports you into that world. I was looking forward to watching this movie and see where Michael Fassbender, who is one of the best actors out there, can do with solid material like this. Even though it is not his fault, he has been in a slump of movies with The Light Between Oceans, X-Men: Apocalypse (I liked his performance in that movie), Assassin's Creed and Alien: Covenant, I hoped he was going to make a comeback this was released in the Oscar season. Well, this movie is considerably worse than those movies I listed and it is the most colossal disappointment of 2017.
Detective Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) is living in Oslo and is head of a homicide squad that is investigating a series of murders under one gaze of a snowman and I'll get to that illogical and unintended humor in a bit. Along with him is his partner and new recruit, an investigator named Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson), that helps hims along the way and creates some theories and has a secret past. Unbalanced with his personal life with his ex-wife, Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Harry's investigation becomes scattered along with the movie's narrative as he follow some wrong paths. One path leads to a businessman Arve Stop (J.K. Simmons) that looks human but may have some secrets in his pockets.
I cannot spoil the movie but I have heard some troubling things about the production of this movie. Director Tomas Alfredson said that 10-15% of the script was not shot and the studio did not allow him to make the movie that he wanted to make and that he was rushed. Well, after witnessing his project, he is right but there's a lot of wrong problems added to this pile of snowy garbage. This is a dull, frigid narrative that disintegrates all the intrigue because of its execution. Legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker (editor of many of Martin Scorsese's movies) and editor Claire Simpson cannot do anything to save this movie because the studio was thinking about its release and not about its complete package.
This movie is an example of how a movie studio should be ashamed of themselves for not allowing the creators and people behind the scenes to make a decent or a complete film. It is unacceptable. The narrative is all over the place when goes back and forth with its flashbacks and present scenes. The pacing is awful making the two-hour movie feel like it would not end. The opening sequence of the movie was disturbing and makes you feel queasy for the rest of the movie with its grim atmosphere of the Scandinavian locations, which by the way, it is shot beautifully. Michael Fassbender does what he can with this material and is not bad but once again, he is good in a very terrible movie as he and Ferguson stroll around like they have no clue what they are looking for. They looked catatonic and confused.
And, the killer's motivations has to be explained in the climax like it can top the original Psycho but gets worse with a weirdly edited fight and the fight's conclusion. It gets silly as to why he makes a Snowman after he is finished with his killings. How long does it take to build a snowman? It's more likely that police will catch the guy. There is no intrigue or excitement to its mystery, making it worthless to watch it again because you can actually tell which scenes are missing and what needed to be improved. The cinematography and Fassbender's and Ferguson's respectful attempt to salvage this movie prevents my labeling of this movie as cinematic trash. However, I cannot believe how much talent was wasted in this. Let it melt for all eternity.
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