Winter blunder land
THE SNOWMAN Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (profanity, nudity, violence). Now playing.
‘THE Snowman” arrives in theaters this week with a flourish of spectacularly bad timing: Not only does its plot revolve around artfully dismembered women, its hero is named — I’m not kidding! — Harry Hole.
The novels it’s based on, by Jo Nesbø, are serviceable Scandinavian noir to sit on a shelf alongside the “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” books (also page-turners despite glaring misogyny issues). But this adaptation is so sloggy it feels like wading through a thigh-deep snowfall, stained scarlet from the gratuitous gore.
Hole, your standard-issue alcoholic, depressive-yet-brilliant detective, is played by Michael Fassbender, a generally very good actor whose instruction from director Tomas Alfredson (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) seems to have been: “Think ‘catatonic’ and then perk it up a notch or two.”
On the trail of a killer who leaves ominous snowmen as his calling card, Hole’s surrounded by women in peril: Charlotte Gainsbourg as an ex, Rebecca Ferguson as a rookie investigator, Chloë Sevigny as twins — one luckier than the other. Val Kilmer is a brief, daffy bright spot as a detective even more off-the-rails than Harry, but the rest of “The Snowman” will (I can’t help myself) leave you cold.