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Polar
Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Writer: Jayson Rothwell (screenplay by), Víctor Santos (based on the Dark Horse graphic novel “Polar: Came from the cold” by)
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick
Music: Deadmau5
Cinematographer: Pär M. Ekberg
Production Designer: Emma Fairley
Distributor: Netflix

Retired hitman, unassuming but cute neighbor, John Wick style art direction in the commercials with MADS MIKKELSEN at the helm?!  This looks amazing, what could go wrong? A lot unfortunately.

Duncan Vizla, soon to be retired hitman, gets ready to settle down to a “normal life” after decades of taking others.  Approaching 50 he’s fallen under the rules of this employer that he must leave the business and due to his impressive abilities he’s looking at a tremendous retirement package.  Unfortunately, it’s a retirement package that his employer, against some really informed advice, intends to keep.

Polar, based on the webcomic written and illustrated by Victor Santos, starts off well enough with a fairly campy action sequence.  Another newly retired assassin is killed while attempting to enjoy his payout and we’re introduced to what I’ll lovingly refer to as the “goon squad”.  A hit team consisting of the most stereotypical comic book style lackeys I’ve seen in film since the late 90’s, answering to their incredibly foppish boss Blut. It is here that I have to admit to not having a history with the source material and didn’t know whether these characters and their personalities were accurate to the comic or not so I decided to reserve my judgement and keep watching.  After about 10 mins the audience is finally introduced to Duncan, and it’s here that the movie, in my opinion, actually gets started.

Mads Mikkelsen is an amazing actor and he plays into this character in a way that seems incredibly natural.  His demeanor, interactions, and awkwardness around “normal” people are believable and despite being a cold blooded killer he can be incredibly likeable. Opposite Mikkelsen is Vanessa Hudgens, who plays his solitary and extremely anxious neighbor Camille.  Together they do a beautiful job grounding these characters and making them seem real. Their interactions, while awkward at first, do progress at a nice pace as they connect and open up to each other. It is through these moments that the movie shines, especially when Duncan’s hitman mindset awkwardly skews the way he tries to endear himself to his Camille.  

Character building aside, this is a John Wick-esque hitman movie and what’s a hitman movie without action?  After about 40 mins of Duncan and Camille connecting in their sleepy town, the goon squad finally closes in to relieve him of his retirement package and in the process kidnaps Camille.  It is here that the movie shifts gears to a full fledged action movie and pace picks up drastically until the end.

I won’t spoil it but if you’re a person who grew up on action movies you pretty much know what’s going to happen going forward.

Polar is a very uneven film.  Based on Metacritic score, critics hate it and the viewers love it and frankly I can see why.  For all this films faults, over-the-top acting, flamboyant antagonists, campy dialogue, uninspired torture scene, ass-shots and gratuitous sex I can’t deny that I enjoyed the film a lot and I honestly think this movie as a whole is merely a victim of its time.  If this film had come out in the 90’s it would have fit nicely among the action films of the era ticking all the boxes that made those movies box office hits. There are even a fair amount of nods to those other action flicks and shows like a (Netflix) Daredevil inspired hallway fight, and a nod to John Wicks short lived relationship to his K9 friend just to name a few. Unfortunately for Polar, the action genre has evolved a lot since the era of Siegal, Van Damme and Stallone and at the very least so have critics expectations.  As I said, Mikkelsen and Hudgens are great in this movie and are the most solid characters throughout. If this had been a drama about how they helped each other cope with their troubled pasts I believe this movie would have been solid gold. What we get is a popcorn flick out of time that is so bad it’s good.

Eric Snell
esnell@comicattack.net