A hit-man lives isolated in a cabin at the edge of a lake. One day, an injured woman arrives in front of his house. To save her, he could well risk his own life.
I’ve been a big fan of Jean Reno’s ever since I first saw him in Luc Besson’s “The Big Blue” in 1988 but it was Besson’s 1994 thriller, “Léon: The Professional,” where Reno played an introverted, professional assassin who takes on a 12-year-old Natalie Portman after her family has been murdered by corrupt cop, Gary Oldman, that I really took notice. And so did Hollywood as he went on to star in “Mission: Impossible” with Tom Cruise, Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla,” and John Frankenheimer’s fast-paced “Ronin,” starring alongside Robert De Niro. When I saw the trailer for “Cold Blood,” it piqued my interest, not so much the film but Reno himself. Here it looked like he was playing another hitman and once I realized that, I was sold.
What amazes me is how the marketing team for a studio can make a boring, hackneyed, pedestrian thriller like “Cold Blood” look so good. Jean Reno is the movie’s only saving grace and one man can only do so much. The entire film shouldn’t have to rest on his shoulders but sadly, it does, and the pressure of the entire project eventually crumbles under its own weight.
Reno plays Henry, an elusive hitman who lives in a secluded log cabin in the Rockies, with no roads in or out. The only time he leaves is for an assignment and once the mission is complete, he returns home. After killing a target in New York City, Henry returns to his cabin and gets on with his life. Ten months later, while out ice fishing in front of his home, he hears a crash in the distance and shortly after, sees a young woman, Melody (Sarah Lind), crawling out of the forest, covered in blood and badly bruised. She passes out and he brings her home and over the coming weeks, takes care of her, treating her wounds and feeding her.
When she finally gets back on her feet, he informs her that she must leave, telling her that he lives alone and does so by choice. One morning, after he has gone outside to ice fish, Meldoy follows him and with his back to her, she pulls out a gun and shoots him in the back of the head, only to realize that it is a makeshift dummy made up to look like him. He knocks her out and brings her back to the cabin and when she wakes up, he demands to know who she is. She finally explains that the man he killed in New York ten months earlier, was her father. Although he was never there for her, she decided to exact revenge on principle alone. Henry then explains to her that she was the second part of that particular mission and instead of trying to track her down, as she lived off the grid, he decided to wait for her to turn up. When his cabin is shot up by some of Melody’s acquaintances, it becomes a fight to the death where only one can walk away.
“Cold Blood” has all the ingredients of a great thriller but unfortunately, they are never fully exploited. A hitman in a log cabin in the snowy wilderness, tracked down by the daughter of a former mark, what’s not to love about that premise? There are so many directions the script could have gone but instead, director Frédéric Petitjean seems perfectly happy settling for a textbook thriller instead of infusing it with fresh components and a twist you can’t see coming a mile away. Earlier this year, Netflix produced an original film titled “Polar,” which starred Mads Mikkelsen as a retired hitman who is targeted by his former employer as they deem him a liability. He lives in a snowy wilderness far away from civilization and throughout the story, he befriends a young woman who we later find out is the daughter of a mark he killed years earlier so as I settled down to watch “Cold Blood,” I couldn’t help but make comparisons to “Polar,” a far superior movie that wasn’t afraid to take chances. If only “Cold Blood” had the courage to take the occasional risk, it could have been incredible.
In theaters & On Demand July 5th
