Cold Trail (2006) User Reviews

Cheesy but viewable movie

[loki61 · 3/10 · 12 April 2008]

A reporter living in Reykjavik finds out that his father may have died under suspicious circumstances. He starts working in a power plant located in the arctic desert of Iceland and starts his little private investigation in order to solve the mystery of his fathers death.

This movie may be the best icelandic action movie since "Í skugga hrafnsins" by director Hrafn Gunnlaugsson. However, director Björn Brynjólfur has a long way to travel before he'll rise above the B-label standard he has earned himself with his earlier movies.

As to be expected, the light-work is horrible in this movie. Björn simply does not understand the fine line between artistic lighting and pure trash and should stick with B&W film. Handing Björn a colour film is just a waste of money.

The outward appearance of the movie is quite cheesy and amateurish. The slow, shaky, freehand pan-ing at the beginning of the film is absolutely hilarious.

Atmospheric Icelandic chiller

[ODDBear · 8/10 · 11 January 2007]

A reporter finds out that his father died under suspicious circumstances in a power plant located in the icy wilderness of Iceland. He goes undercover and lands a security job at the facility in order to solve the mystery.

Suspenseful and atmospheric thriller set in the beautiful icy wilderness of northern Iceland. The mystery is well written and has a few genuine surprises up it's sleeve. It's kinda Hollywood looking at times (the soundtrack especially) but that doesn't diminish the fact that this is a tight suspense ride with some cliffhanger scenes. It's well acted by veteran icelandic performers and production values are excellent.

I recommend people locating this one on DVD in the near future.

A lot of snow, believable action not so much

[newjersian · 2/10 · 9 May 2022]

This is a colorless and unremarkable, slow, boring, and predictable movie. But the little horses and deers are a plus. However, you can see them in a zoo rather than wasting your time on this amateurish flop.

Great atmospheric thriller

[rlaine · 8/10 · 8 October 2012]

I try to watch any Nordic crime/thriller I can. I'm a huge fan of Beck, Wallander, Varg Veum, The Killing etc, and altho this isn't a part of a series, it's somewhat similar. You have a reporter (like Stieg Larssons trilogy) and a suspected crime to solve.

The story is rather simple, but engaging. What really makes this movie worthwhile is the atmosphere. I love arctic, snowy, isolated locations and this really excels there. The Icelandic scenery, huge power plant, a few shots over Reykjavik, windy and snowy outdoor scenes, you really feel the cold and isolation.

The cinematography is great, altho like mentioned already, it's highly stylized with very tight color scheme of bluish cold colors. Often you see this kind of choice in cinematography to make digital video look less video-like, but I read here that this was actually shot on film. There is some visible grain, but it doesn't really matter, the images mostly look great and it's a real pleasure to watch.

I don't speak Icelandic, but I felt the acting was very good and natural. There were many scenes that would've looked really dumb, had they been handled differently, especially in the latter half.

Storywise I think it was pretty similar to other Nordic crime stories and this could easily be part of a series. One thing I wasn't quite sure about the story was the "supernatural" element, or was it supernatural, you can't really be sure, but there is some mystery there that isn't explained. There were also some revelations and twists in the end that I'm not sure were really needed anymore, but as a whole I really enjoyed this movie.

I actually recorded this movie few months ago and watched it half way until realizing it wasn't completely recorded. It was so good I ended up watching it from beginning to end on the second go few months after, just for the atmosphere.