Cold Blooded (2012)

Very disappointing...

Sadly Over-hyped

A Masterpiece!

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a film that deals with a young woman, Frances, who is a rookie cop. Her duty is to guard a prisoner who robbed a jewelry and was knocked unconscious when he was arrested.Frances is a smart, alert good cop and she is a nice foil to the prisoner called Cordero, who is equally sharp as her, but just on the other side of the law. The verbal parrying and banter between Cordero and Frances at the start of the film is good, and one starts off the film with rather high hopes for Frances.However things take a turn for the serious when Cordero's crew mates come to pay him a visit. When Cordero is caught, he is with another accomplice who is, for some reason shot dead. Cordero learns that the official version of the events is that Cordero shot his accomplice, which Cordero swears up and down is false. The problem is that the main crew boss coming to get the diamonds from Cordero, is also going to come to kill Cordero b/c he thinks Cordero turned on the accomplice. The crew mates come and the battle between them and Frances ensues which is a very brutal and bloody one. There is an event that happens to Frances relatively early on in the film which was *very* difficult for me to watch even though I usually love gore and blood. Maybe it was the realistic way in which this scene was done, or maybe because Frances is a character you are rooting for, but whatever the case, it was hard to watch.Having said that, the film carries on at a good level of tension, action, and a satisfying denouement with a cast that was pretty solid. Overall, a good action/crime film, just maybe not for the squeamish or those who cannot suspend disbelief.

"Cold Blooded" is one neat little film -- unpretentious, uncompromising, fast-paced without being hasted. It is low-budget, yet that fact only shows in the efficient use of actors, places and scenes. Speaking of actors: Zoie Palmer (who looks a wee bit like Kira Knightly) and Ryan Robbins give a great performance. Palmer's character Frances is believably determined without drifting into super cop clichés. Plus, most of the film she is seen with weirdly sexy blood splatters across her face (sorry, I can't help it). Robbins is realistic in his role as the not-so-bad guy.Sure, there are some flaws, even one or two face-palm moments (MILD SPOILER: the officer at the very end, who let a badly injured person that is supposedly under shock wander off on her own END MILD SPOILER), yet the rest of the script is strong enough to make up for those.

Diamonds. Minimalistic film making that pushes fear through stratified narrative. The stage is set in 15min and the rest is the real time chase. One hour. The acts of brutality are made vivid by the lack of sound effects. You have the expectation and all you are left with is the visual or the threat of it in voice and a cut off shot. Extremely effective. Low light and unbalanced composition with the stark contrast of the world outside the bottle, nail film noir at its core. The cast on this did a phenomenal job-- MacDonald was menacing as the savage veneered in civility and intellect. Robbins plays a likable con seemingly trapped by his own circumstance where ethics are as mutable as survival. Palmer was the glue that held the entire thing together. What I really enjoyed was her ability to demonstrate the panic of unanticipated stakes and shoulder the character through till she meets herself in the mirror again. The entire thing makes you want to watch it one more time for the detail you missed. Great, great job.

I was fortunate enough to have seen this film at #MIFF 2012. I had an idea of what to expect but it blew those ideas out of the water. The cast is top notch. Ryan Robbins was believably amoral, Zoie Palmer's performance was quiet and unassuming nevertheless a strong female role model and William MacDonald was positively terrifying. Billed as a modern day cops and robbers, the plot twists and turns, keeping you guessing. The shocking violence often had the audience gasping and then laughing nervously at the screening I went to. The violence was handled shrewdly and moreover believably. I never once felt the violence was there for strictly shock and awe. It was always part of the story and therefore necessary. That said, Cold Blooded resonated with me so much that I found myself thinking of it days later. Always a sign of a great film.