The Frozen Ground (2013)

You know, when I said in my review of "The Raven" that Nicolas Cage and John Cusack should get together in a serial killer movie, I really didn't think they were actually going to do it. Now granted it's not the same as my idea, which was to have it be a story about a horror author doing battle against his dark half that somehow emerged and started killing people using the methods described in his own works (since that would have been a far more interesting plot than "The Raven"), but it's still nice to know that I clearly seem to have some manner of power over space and time. That's good to know.

Anyway. "The Frozen Ground" is another in the recent line of inexcusably straight-to-DVD Nicolas Cage vehicles that try and inform everyone of what myself and other enlightened individuals already know: That Cage is not worthy of the scorn and mockery that is constantly lumped onto him. I can't stand how often I have to say it, but here I go again. The man is a good actor, people. I know it's easy to write him off because he freaks out often and stars in some really, really bad stuff every once in a while (and who doesn't?), but just because a guy goes over the top doesn't make him a bad actor. The fact that he's always believable as that character he is freaking out as while he's freaking out makes him an incredible actor.

Seriously guys. Pacino does the exact same thing and gets a pass but Cage doesn't? Come on.

That's not to say that we shall be witnessing crazy Cage here in "The Frozen Ground." No, this is one of those movies where he keeps it reeled in, since it wouldn't have made that much sense in all honesty for him to do his patented freak outs here. This is a down-to-earth, gritty look at a serial killer which is based on real events, and of the two leads Cage is playing the one who isn't insane. That's somewhat unfortunate, but hey I'm not complaining about watching Cage in any capacity.

Cusack plays Robert Hansen, a serial killer who is believed to have kidnapped, raped and killed dozens of women in Alaska during the late 70's and early 80's. He flies under everyone's radar and avoids suspicion until a prostitute named Cindy Paulson (Vanessa Hudgens) escapes his clutches and reports him to police. While police initially clear Hansen because of his popularity in the town, trooper Jack Holcombe (Nicolas Cage) is one of the few who believes Cindy, and becomes convinced that Hansen is his man after an FBI profiler essentially describes him to a T in his report of the type of person they should be looking for.

Oh snap! It's the long lost MacKenzie brother!

Working with other policemen and Cindy and diving into the shady underbelly of the seedier side of Alaska, Holcombe does his best to find enough evidence to get a warrant and arrest Hansen and nail him for the murders. But he's got to do it quickly, because as Holcombe believes and we as the audience know for a fact, Hansen will kill again very soon.

This isn't the most original film you'll ever see, true, but as far as true life crime thrillers go it's not that bad. Cage turns in an oddly subdued performance which would normally be disappointing, but honestly it wouldn't seem right to have the expected Cage freak outs during this. I mean, if I want Nick Cage as a cop flipping out I'll just watch "Bad Lieutenant." It's not one of his most memorable roles lately, but it's probably one of his more solid ones.

Trying to pull off those cool shades isn't helped by the flannel and mom-jeans. You need a trench coat and slow motion doves for that.

I'd actually rather have seen Cage as Hansen instead of Cusack. Now it's not that Cusack did a bad job, in fact he's kind of terrifying in this movie, but I think Cage could have really brought something special to the role. Then again, if you look at Robert Hansen's actual mugshot, he looks EXACTLY like Guy Pearce, so maybe they could have cast him instead. I don't know.

The real take away from this is Vanessa Hudgens. As much of a Cage fan as I am I have to admit she stole the show here. This is a scary good performance from her, and it's absolutely heartbreaking to watch the poor girl go through what she goes through as she puts on a tough face as she crumbles inside. It's a fantastic role for her, and should really cement her as someone to pay attention to.

You know, I don't think everyone from "High School Musical" could pull off a scene where they're a stripper ODing from cocaine they just snorted off the back of a toilet while being stalked by a serial killer. (This movie's kind of awesome, actually.)

So I'm glad I saw "The Frozen Ground." It's a well made, moody, kind of sleazy period piece that manages to be both fascinating in terms of real events and disturbing in terms of tone and subject matter. It does what it does well, even if Cage isn't unleashed. Ah well. It's still nice seeing him. Although I'm still not sure why Radha Mitchell was in this as his wife. She's got like five lines and is essentially a pointless character. Between this and doing the same thing in "Olympus Has Fallen," is this just a role that she does now? Has Radha Mitchell been reduced to being a side character or appearing for 30 seconds in a mirror? What's going on here?

Check out the trailer for "The Frozen Ground."

THE BOTTOM LINE - It's not incredibly memorable, but "The Frozen Ground" is worth a look, especially if you're into true crime or just a police thriller. Good performances all around, especially by Hudgens, makes it worth the time. This is particularly true when you factor in that the best we usually get with these kinds of stories is CSI. It's nice to see it done well for a change.

The Raven (2012)

Edgar Allen Poe was a 19th century poet and novelist credited with helping to popularize the short story format, inventing the detective story, and being the first writer to attempt making a living off of it. At the end of his life, he was also involved with a "Se7en"-esque serial killer plot that saw several people horribly murdered using methods described in his stories.

What? You didn't know about that last part?

"The Raven" is one of those movies that likes to play it fast, loose and conspiratorial with history. Much like "From Hell" or perhaps "Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies" if you want to get really out there, the story only uses history as tenuously placed support beams to try and hold up the narrative, with varying degrees of success. It's not so much that the historical evidence supports what the movie is trying to say, it's that history never came out and specifically said that President Lincoln didn't kill zombies.

"I'm just saying, if there's no record of zombies in D.C. in the 1860's, someone had to kill them..."

Not that the fact that the story is completely ludicrous is enough to make it bad. Anybody who slams this movie for not being historically accurate is being a total snob barking up several wrong categories and genus of flora. I have a sneaking suspicion that was probably the case with much of the reception that "The Raven" received when it was released earlier this year, because I just remember it getting brutally torn to absolute shreds.

I'm not quite sure what people were expecting when going into a movie that has Edgar Allen Poe chasing down a guy who is going around killing people like he's the Zodiac Killer. Perhaps reality should be checked at the door.

Does that mean I liked "The Raven?" Well, it depends. On a purely subjective level, it was just kind of "meh." It wasn't bad, but it didn't really do a whole lot for me, despite being fairly pretty to look at, and being reasonably engaging in terms of story. I did truly want to know what was going to happen next, and that's not anything to shake a pendulum at. Am I going to remember it in a few weeks time? Probably not. Much of it is already fading, which is the mark of a pretty sub-standard movie.

This is either Cusack being intense or my reaction whenever I watch Dane Cook.

However, when checked against the apocalyptic reception it got from critics and the box office, it's far better than you might expect it to be. Honestly, people, it's not that bad, despite what you may have heard. At least "The Raven" didn't offend me to my core. This isn't the "Total Recall" remake or anything. It was just trying to do something a bit different. And yeah, it didn't succeed that well, but we should be happy to see some originality in movies as opposed to bland PG-13 shlock.

The first thing about "The Raven" that I wasn't so keen on was John Cusack. I know he's got a big fanbase but I've never been a huge fan of his. I think it's because I didn't watch John Hughes-style comedies in the 80's and early 90's. Would you believe I've never seen "Pretty In Pink" or "Real Genius?" For some reason a bunch of those movies just passed me by. And for some reason many of them starred John Cusack. Now I watch movies like that and that nostalgia factor just isn't there for me. I think the Cusack Express has officially passed me by.

I will say that Cusack wasn't horrible as Edgar Allan Poe. At least once the movie got past the first act, that is. When we meet Poe, Cusack is playing him in such an over-the-top obnoxious manner that it's honestly hard to watch. An early scene in a bar where Poe starts begging for a drink by using his fame as credit quickly crosses the line from awkward to uncomfortable and kind of sad. I never thought I'd see John Cusack try to "out-Nicolas Cage" Nicolas Cage, but boy did he try. Cusack wishes he was that awesome.

Seriously, he's one step short of "AAARGH!!!! SOMEONE'S TRYIN' TA KILL ME, MAN!!!!"

As the film progresses Cusack does become more likable once he gets off the whole "half-mad egomaniac" thing. And much of the movie is really about him becoming less pathetic and coming to terms with his inner demons, which is admittedly pretty good stuff as far as character development goes. The big problem, however, is that the genesis of that is a murder mystery with a very lame villain whose motivations literally boil down to a fan being mad that Poe stopped writing.

I know that story has kind of been done before, the prime example I can think of being "Misery," but Kathy Bates wasn't constructing "Saw" level traps and torture devices. She was just a crazy lady who broke James Caan's ankles when he wrote an ending she didn't like. Crazy usually doesn't get that elaborate unless you're a Batman villain. But in "The Raven," the killer is constructing this grand scheme like John Doe from "Se7en" all because he wants more poetry. My, my Grandma, what deep motivations you have.

Also, don't bother trying to figure out who the killer is, because you won't. That's not because it's such a deep mystery. It's because when the killer is unmasked, it's a character who has had maybe two lines and 20 seconds of screen time in the entire film up to that point. They are literally a background character. There's no way to deduce or solve anything beforehand, especially since the ONE CLUE that may have been a hint isn't even shown to us until after the killer has already unmasked themselves.

And at that point you'll still be trying to figure out who the hell this character is anyways.

I would also like to call out the crap talents of one Alice Eve. She plays Poe's love interest, Emily. And well, I'm not sure how to politely say this, so I won't bother with being polite. She is an absolutely dreadful actress. Simply horrendous. She speaks like she's reading her lines off a cue card and is about as believable in her emoting as CGI Yoda. It also doesn't help that when she smiles, it looks like she's inhaled some of The Joker's Smylex Gas.

I think the final straw for me as far as her performance went was a scene were she gets buried alive. As it's happening, she starts pleading with the killer to let her out with the same kind of intensity and fear in her voice as someone bringing back a defective product to the store they bought it from would have: somewhat stern but respectfully polite. Then he tells her to shut up. She meekly says "Okay." It would have been laughable had it been a comedy.

"Oh. I'm buried alive. That's disappointing to me..."

You want to hear the best part? She's going to be in "Star Trek Into Darkness." How fun. They've cast the same waste of space that was terrible in one of the worst movies I saw this year in one of the movies I'm looking most forward to next year. Thanks for that.

So a lousy villain and some suspect acting aside, what did "The Raven" have going for it that made it not as bad as everyone was saying it was? I think what it all comes down to is that the story is interesting to watch unfold, because before the disappointing reveal makes us feel like we've wasted our time, there is pretty good tension being held in terms of the "why" question. Honestly it's a cool idea - that being using a horror writer's work to actually kill people, all while challenging them to solve riddles sprung from their own imagination. In a way it's like watching a man do battle with his dark half that somehow emerged and started killing. In fact, if that literally happened, you could make an awesome horror flick with that plot.

That sounds like a way better movie. See, this is why I should be in charge of stuff. It would all be so much better. And Nicolas Cage could be the dark half of Edgar Allan Poe!

YES.

It's all coming together.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Raven," while not great, it not the horror show train-wreck it was made out to be. Fans of Poe might get some amusement out of the constant references to his body of work and life, but they could just as easily be annoyed by it at the same time. It really depends on how seriously you're taking it. My advice: Don't do that. It also helps to have low expectations, too.