'Cold Weather' – 4 out of 5 stars
An ex-girlfriend calls and asks to see you because she’s in town, you hangout a couple of times and everything’s sort of nice, but then she disappears and something’s definitely amiss. What do you do? Well, of course, you’ve got to figure out what the hell is going on; you’ve got to get to the bottom of this and find her.
It’s the classic storyline of the detective genre and it’s been done a million times, but the film “Cold Weather” manages to put a new shine on the tired plot and present a tight, lifelike package that grips the audience like a teenager holding a beer for the first time — loosely, so it looks cool, but with a clutch that will never let go.
Centering on Doug (newcomer Cris Lankenau), a forensic science student and Sherlock Holmes aficionado, the film tells a surprisingly grounded story. There is no plot point or character action in the film that seems improbable. In most other cases, this leads to a certain blandness, predictability and a reduction of the escapism appeal. But “Cold Weather” walks the line of realism with a tactful playfulness.
The practicality of the film makes the narrative much more compelling than boring. Each small funny moment seems substantially more likeable because the characters are like people in the audience’s life. On the other side of the spectrum, any moment with suspense has a compounded effect on the audience because “Cold Weather” doesn’t follow Hollywood rules; it follows the real world rules. In the real world some real terrible shit can happen to loved ones if the wrong people are fucked with.
“Cold Weather” marks a minor miracle in independent filmmaking. Its nuanced details comparable to real life mixed with a distinct 21st Century American take on classic film noir creates an end product that, despite its smallness of size and scope, ends up being one of the most charming detective stories in years.