It's generally a terrible idea to get on Liam Neeson's bad side. The once-pedigreed dramatic thespian has long transitioned into his gritty action hero phase, and that continues with Cold Pursuit, a movie that finds him hunting down a drug cartel with his snow plow. I'm not kidding:
Cold Pursuit used to be known as Hard Powder, and I don't love the name change, but it's not the title that's going to lure people into theaters to see this movie. It's the fact that Liam Neeson is once again hunting down bad guys with his special set of skills... no, wait. Dammit, that's a different franchise.
What's the set up here? Liam Neeson and Laura Dern (great casting, already) are loving parents who are shocked to find that their perfect son was a drug addict. Turns out, the kid got himself in with the wrong crowd, and that crowd included a band of drug dealers with secret code names.
Once that has been established, Cold Pursuit lets Liam Neeson get down to the business of doing what Liam Neeson does: Dispensing of bad guys in creatively lethal ways. The unexpected wrinkle of Cold Pursuit -- man, I wish this was still called Hard Powder -- is that Neeson's character is a retired snow plow driver. And yes, he definitely uses his plow to eliminate a car filled with thugs.
This Cold Pursuit trailer is so badass, it ALMOST pushes this guy out of the top spot of Coolest Characters Associated With A Plow:
Cold Pursuit plans to trek out into the frigid box-office tundra of February, a time that used to be dreadful for movies but has caught fire in recent years. If it's going to strike pay dirt and tap into Liam Neeson's Taken market, it's going to have to contend with The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and Taraji P. Henson's What Men Want remake. That's a good strategy, though, as all three of those films are going after totally different audiences.
It's hard to believe that we are winding down the 2018 movie release schedule and projecting ahead to 2019 already, but trailers like this one for Cold Pursuit remind us that the cycle never slows down. The best you can do is to stay on that plow, and ram it into a few bad guys along your way.
Liam Neeson's Cold Pursuit opens in theaters on February 8, 2019. For a complete rundown of all the 2019 movies, bookmark our guide and check it often.
