#60 THE FROZEN GROUND

Written and directed by Scott Walker. Starring Nicolas Cage and John Cusack. 105 minutes.

Based on the true story of the efforts of detective, Jack Halcombe (played by Nic Cage) to apprehend the serial killer, Robert Hansen (John Cusack) back in the1980s who terrorised Anchorage for over 13 years.

Nicolas Cage now has two modes of acting, bored or manic. For this role he uses setting one. This isn't a fun film or one you'd own and happily return to for a cosy Sunday afternoon viewing. It's depressing and grim, mainly because of Hansen's methods of murder but also because the film keeps shoe-horning in scenes of nudity and titilation at a lap dancing club, where Hansen's only living victim returns to over and over again to work. Watching the methodical detective slowly trying to piece together the witness testimony with his pursuit of Hansen never rises above procedural and it's not helped by the unnecessary addition of an action sequence and shoot-out between secondary characters and a desperate race against time to rescue the survivor before the killer can catch her again. The film finally comes to life in the final scenes during the interrogation sequence, but by then it's just too little, far too late.

Not a bad film, just not that satisfying or rewarding.

6/10