Tag Archives: Hans Petter Moland

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Forget & Forgive

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Absolution

by Daniel Baldwin

Sixteen years ago, a then-52-year-old Liam Neeson starred in the action-thriller Taken and his career completely changed. While he’s still made a few notable dramas since, the bulk of his work post-2008 has been in the action realm. This resulted in plenty of gems, particularly in his work with filmmakers Jaume Collet-Serra and Joe Carnahan. But it has also resulted in many duds over the last five years. The once-dependable aging action king began pumping out dreck like Honest Thief, Blacklight, and The Ice Road.

Lucky for us, Absolution is a big step back in the right direction. This film sees Neeson reteaming with his Cold Pursuit director Hans Petter Moland for a crime drama that leans very heavily on the drama side of the equation. This time ‘round, Neeson plays an aging gangster who is having a rough go of things. His memory isn’t what it used to be – sometimes to the point where he forgets where his house is – and that’s not a healthy problem to have when you work for a Boston mob boss (Ron Perlman), even if he is your longtime friend. This issue is further compounded by the fact that Neeson’s stuck babysitting Perlman’s son (Daniel Diemer), who is as entitled as he is inept.

With his mental faculties on the wane, our antihero decides its high-time to rekindle some sort of relationship with his daughter (Frankie Shaw) and grandson (Terrence Pulliam), while also striking up a romance with a local woman (Yolanda Ross). He’s a bad, broken man nearing the end of the road, trying to find a measure of goodness and forgiveness to cling to before he leaves this world behind. There’s a deep sorrow at the core of Neeson’s performance, showcased not only in his interactions with his limited number of loved ones, but also in a series of surrealist dreams about his own father (Josh Drennen).

This isn’t new territory. Toss a rock at the filmographies of earlier aging action heroes like Charles Bronson and Clint Eastwood and you will find at least a few similar films. It isn’t even new ground for Neeson, whose 2022 film Memory saw the actor as an assassin dealing with memory issues.

What sets Absolution apart is Hans Petter Moland. Moreso than Cold Pursuit or even Out Stealing Horses, Moland charges at it all head on with his penchant for lush, pensive visuals and aforementioned surrealism, turning an airport novel tale into something a bit more. This results in Neeson’s best genre flick since The Marksman and his best performance since Scorsese’s Silence.

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Horse Thief

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Out Stealing Horses

by Hope Madden

So much for going Hollywood.

Prolific Norwegian filmmaker Hans Petter Moland follows up his first foray into blockbuster territory—a Liam Neeson-fronted English language remake of his own vengeance thriller Cold Pursuit—with the decidedly non-blockbuster, specifically Norwegian drama Out Stealing Horses.

This pensive and utterly gorgeous film sifts through time to land on the moment that irreversibly alters the course of a life.

In this case, it’s Trond’s life. It’s winter of ‘99—almost the millennium—and the aging Trond (Stellan Skarsgård) is just settling into hermithood. Though he’s been in Sweden for years, the death of his wife in a car accident (he was at the wheel) convinced him to cross the river back to his childhood home of Norway to sit quietly and think.

And then he meets his neighbor, who inadvertently stirs up memories and gives Trond’s meditation new direction.

Moland adapts Petterson’s beloved novel, streamlining until what’s left is an extremely intimate tale only mildly hampered by the tiresome flashback structure. Moland only hints at the novel’s historical context, instead developing a sense of fearful awe in the face of life, the small moments that determine an individual’s trajectory, and the insistent longing to imagine what could have been.

The technical mastery at work in this film—from sound design to lighting, from Rasmus Videbæk’s gorgeous cinematography to Kaspar Kaee’s unerring score—adds power to Moland’s every meditative moment. In perfect harmony with the team, Moland effortlessly evokes the senses throughout this sometimes Malick-esque photo album of the summer that everything changed.

Moland and team create the glimmering, lush and gorgeous memories Trond relives—too gorgeous to be exact, but exactly as gorgeous as needed to be memory.

Out Stealing Horses can’t quite make the current-day footage ache or resonate quite so clearly. The events adult Trond deals with feel artificial, a forced structure. But that doesn’t rob the film of its magic.

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Best Served Cold

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Cold Pursuit

by Hope Madden

Liam Neeson, everybody.

If we’d ever wondered what fueled Neeson’s on-screen obsession with a character who can turn from perfectly ordinary, even good guy to blindly bloodthirsty avenging devil, now we know. His movies were more fun before, weren’t they?

In Cold Pursuit, Neeson’s ninth riff on the theme since his 2008 career-changer Taken, he takes on mainly white guys (whew!).

Kehoe, Colorado’s most beloved snow plow driver Nels Coxman (Neeson) learns of his son’s heroin overdose death. Not believing his son to have been a junkie, he does some digging, and some retaliatory murdering.

One thing leads to another, the holy bonds between father and son are honored without being explored, Laura Dern (as Mrs. Coxman) vanishes from the film by the end of Act 1, and a rival drug gang complicates the revenge fantasy.

This is director Hans Petter Moland’s reboot of his own 2014 Norwegian thriller, In Order of Disappearance. Both films employ a dark and absurd humor that keep the well-worn material from feeling stale. The weird tone and Moland’s flair for fantastic visuals—not to mention his joy of carnage—keep the film intriguing from start to finish.

A game supporting cast doesn’t hurt. Tom Bateman (listen close and you can hear him say, “holy shit” in The Interview) chews enough scenery to balance Neeson’s quiet brood.

Plenty of peculiar turns and quirky moments between odd characters elevate this one above your garden variety Neeson thriller. It offers a mildly entertaining time—assuming you can get past the actor’s own disturbing relationship with revenge.