The Snowman

The Snowman

Starring Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonas Karlsson

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

The Story:
Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) is an acclaimed detective who is thrown into a case involving the Snowman Killer, a serial killer who builds snowmen outside his victims' homes before killing them.  He prefers to work alone, but new recruit Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson) throws herself into the case as well, and the two try to decipher the clues and question the witnesses in hopes of finding the killer before he strikes again.

The Synopsis:
Do you want to build a snowman?
Watch Fassbender run around all day
The story makes no sense
The characters are all dense
All sanity has gone away
Tomas Alfredson used to be so great
And now, he's not
I wish someone would tell me why
Do you wanna build a snowman?
So you can bury the film The Snowman?

Some films are just ripe for parody, and "The Snowman" - a film directed by Tomas Alfredson ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," "Let the Right One In") based off a series of novels by Norwegian author Jo Nesbo - is one of those films.  The story goes from the bare-bones concept where the killer is as obvious as knowing not to breathe underwater to an odd side story set nine years in the past with Val Kilmer trying to act but ends up speaking in a Bane-style voice which is barely understandable.  But that's alright - the entire film is barely understandable.

Every year there seems to be that film based on an acclaimed novel that is simply drivel.  Two years ago it was "Gone Girl" which, despite an Oscar-nominated performance by Rosamund Pike (as well as that one scene between Pike and Neil Patrick Harris that makes it totally obvious why he digs dudes now), seemed like a long, drawn-out, boring Lifetime movie.  Last year it was Emily Blunt in "The Girl on the Train" where you just wished she would get hit by the train.  This year it's Michael Fassbender who is given the lame treatment in "The Snowman," another film that looses the essence of the source material.

On imdb, the film is listed as a Crime, Drama, Horror film.  The only crime is how it steals time and money from the viewers.  The drama exists in whether or not to get up and leave, or sit it out since you already started it in the first place.  The horror takes place when you realize a group of people actually thought this was a good product.  There's absolutely nothing saving this film from how truly awful it is - the story is so simple you can tell who the killer is within the first half hour, there's that odd side story that really goes nowhere, and even the actors seemed to phone their performances in.  It all leads to an unsatisfying conclusion so rushed and hackneyed you'd find better resolutions on a "Law & Order" episode.

Michael Fassbender plays Harry Hole (I kid you not, that is the character's actual name. I know, it sounds like a gay porn actor's name, but that's his actual name).  He's a stumbling drunk, smokes like a chimney, yet he's the best detective out there.  Sounds kinda familiar, and he lives up to the stereotype.  Rebecca Ferguson plays Katrine Bratt, who takes on the case for a more personal vendetta.  The film also stars J.K. Simmons (and his very weird accent), Val Kilmer (who seems to have had botched plastic surgery, as well as an even worse voice job), and Toby Jones (no real idea why he was there in the first place).  All the actors float through their performances like they were in a trance, or forced to appear in the film due to contractural obligations.

Ultimately, it's because of the actor's lack of passion that makes the film an uninspired mess.  If they don't care what happens to them or the story they're telling, why should we?  Even though there's a neat little twist thrown in near the end, it falls incredibly flat because we just don't care - because no one else does either.  The script goes all over the place - from the Snowman Killer (who doesn't seem to be an actual serial killer, but kind of is, sometimes...) to Val Kilmer's adventure nine years ago to Rebecca Ferguson going after J.K. Simmons' character for...reasons?  There's so much packed into this powder it should create the most beautiful snowman of them all, but instead it gets weighed down by its own hubris and becomes a slushy mess.  Oh, I forgot to mention that the film supposedly takes place in Norway - even though no one speaks the language, all the writing is in American English, and the actors spread the spectrum of different countries, but none from Norway.  It could've taken place in Colorado and I wouldn't have known the difference.

The Summary:
When you get a script that goes all over the place, a cast who doesn't care to be there, and a film that travels at a sluggish pace, you get "The Snowman" - a mess from start to finish that has nothing of redeeming value and serves as a waste of time for anyone who is unfortunate enough to see it.

The Score: D-