What’s this all about?
After a string of screamy action/thrillers and ill-advised devil-themed nonsense, Nick returned to the world of “serious” films, in 2013’s The Frozen Ground. A procedural retelling of the real life crimes and apprehension of Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, the film stays grounded in reality, creating a dark vision of Alaska’s criminal underground in the early 1980’s.
The central theme of the film is the absolute negligence shown to Hansen’s victims by law enforcement because he was an “upstanding citizen” (read “white male with a job”) and his victims weren’t (read “female prostitutes). The identity of the killer is known to all throughout the film, but most law enforcement simply refuses to pursue the case, basically because they don’t care about some dead prostitutes.
Having lived through the 1980’s, I find this to be entirely believable.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays Jack Holcombe, an Alaska State Police detective. He has a wife and some kids, and is planning to start a new job, but none of that is really important to the story. The character correctly correlates a string of under-investigated crimes as the work of a serial killer, whom he then pursues.
Nick’s performance is restrained and believable. It’s one of those performances that makes you wonder how Nick went so far wrong in films like Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans.
Who else is in this one?
John Cusack (Better off Dead) plays “Robert Hansen,” the deranged serial killer. The role is fairly small, but impactful, and handled well by Cusack.
Vanessa Hudgens (a bunch of Disney Channel stuff) plays prostitute and Hansen-survivor “Cindy.” She seems strung out, flaky, and insufferable, so I guess she did pretty well. It’s hard to sympathize with the character, as she stacks bad decision upon bad decision, but law enforcement’s lack of sympathy was kind of the point of the movie.
Dean Norris (the brother-in-law from Breaking Bad) plays another detective. He’s fine.
Kevin Dunn (the bad guy who isn’t Frank Langella in Dave) plays Nick’s boss, “Bob Jent.” He’s honestly great, as he always is. I love a good character actor, and Dunn is one of the best.
Brad William Henke (“Coover Bennett” from Justified) plays “Carl,” a criminal dirtbag of some sort. It’s the only thing that I’ve ever seen him in besides Justified, and he plays a mean, violent dirtbag just as well, here.
For some reason,. this character does Hansen’s bidding (Hansen is paying him), but he takes it a lot farther than seems reasonable. He’s not based on a real person, so I feel like the film just used him to create tension/a standoff knowing that Hansen wouldn’t.
Kurt Fuller (“Woody” from Psych) plays the DA who doesn’t want to give Nick a search warrant, basically because he doesn’t want to bother Hansen on nothing but the word of an almost murdered prostitute.
Fuller is another fantastic character actor, and he’s excellent, here.
50 Cent (A rapper of some sort) plays a pimp. His relationship to Cindy is unclear, and the character really serves no purpose other than to fight with Carl.
Did you see that?
Rather than a specific scene, I’m going to call out the setting of the film. It’s set in Anchorage, Alaska in the fall/winter of 1983. The director shot the entire film on location in 23 days to capture the feel of the approaching winter.
He captured it beautifully. He also captured the rarely shown vibe of American backwaters in the 80’s. Instead of the bright colors, bold fashion, and rampant consumer excess that we’re often shown to depict the 80’s, we see 1983 as basically 1975’s leftovers.
The rooms in houses are dark, paneled affairs with worn, shaggy carpet, and dated decorations. In offices, the lighting is flickering 60-cycle fluorescent shining on heavily painted olive and taupe walls. The restaurants and bars are dark, dingy places with patrons that look like they haven’t moved from their seats since The Brady Bunch was on.
The outfits are full of polyester and wide lapels, rather than neon colors and bold patterns.
It nails the feel as I remember it, and really adds to the film. -Michael
The cop cars had me. It was so Hill Street Blues style. They were the cop cars I remember from my childhood. – Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
Near the end of the film, Nick is once again asking the DA for a search warrant while presenting his growing mountain of evidence. The DA essentially tells Nick that he’ll need to think about it, and that he’ll get back to him.
Nick loses his patience and delivers a short, impassioned speech that basically says, “I wonder how many women Hansen can rape and murder in the time it takes you to think about it.”
This speech is delivered by Nick as a man who has lost his patience with bullshit, but not his mind. He doesn’t scream or TaLk LiKe hE CaN’t cOnTrOl hIs VoLuMe, as is so often the cas with Nick, and it carries a lot of weight because of it. -Michael
The scene where Nick told Cindy what happened to his sister to get her to stay. He did an amazing job. You can tell he is a normally private guy opening up his deepest most private feelings and pain. – Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
Nick’s performance was really good in this movie. For “worst scene” I’ll call out the argument that Nick has with his wife about letting Cindy stay at their house. It’s less of an argument, and more of Nick’s wife yelling while he tries ineffectively to get her to shut up. I don’t know if this scene was based on specific real events, so maybe that’s how it happened, but it seems like it would be fairly trivial for a man like Nick’s character to explain that Cindy is a rape victim, and the target of a serial killer, and that keeping her at home for a few nights will likely save her life and facilitate the capture of a man who killed more than 20 women. I know that’s really more of a dig at the writing than Nick’s performance, but he didn’t change into the devil or have robotic sex once in this movie, so I don’t have much to work with, here. -Michael
There wasn’t really a worst. Nick did a great and consistent job. He only yelled once, and it was appropriate and not over the top. – Sarah
How was the movie?
This was a really good movie. If you like true crime films, this is asolid one. The pace is slow, and there’s no real mystery, but I feel like that’s accurate to the subject matter. The acting is excellent across the board. The cinematography is very good, and the writing mostly avoids the flights of fancy that we see in many “real life” stories.
It’s a shame that this movie absolutely lost its ass at the box office. -Michael
It was a very good movie. It was a great story and very well acted. – Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
I liked it a lot. -Michael
Yes. I very much enjoyed it. – Sarah
Where can I watch it?
It’s free on Roku channel.
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