User Reviews

"Snowman's Land" is the second film written and directed by Tomasz Thomsen and came out almost 10 years after his first work "Stiller Sturm". The main character is played by Jürgen Rißmann and while I was occasionally not sure if he was boring or quietly convincing, as a whole, I liked his performance. It was a mix of the two characters mentioned in the title of my review. He also had nice physical presence. There were quite a few indicators of what is going to happen. For example when his young colleague (reminded me a bit of Pinkman in "Breaking Bad") tells he is unbreakable at one point, it was fairly obvious he is not gonna survive this movie. Same goes for the character played by Kanischtscheff. When he keeps rambling about how this is all gonna be his I felt that he will be killed off at some point as well.

I personally enjoyed the first 30-45 minutes of this film the most. There is not really a lot happening, but the tension between the two contract killers and the woman is pretty interesting. When Berger enters the picture, it gets slightly worse, although I liked the idea that they wanted to try to kill him. However, he was faster. When they find the girl and Berger suspects somebody else, it all gets a bit weak and the best moments of the film had already passed. Especially that bald muscular guy all of a sudden knocking out Berger was so out of nowhere, certainly one plot twist too many. I'm not too big on the narrator either. The ending was a bit strange as Berger and the bald guy suddenly disappear and Rißmann's character actually manages to get into safety. It would have made sense if they, according to the title, would only have displayed what happened in the snowy forest area, but early on and also the final scene took place somewhere entirely different. Maybe too much of a forced happy ending for my taste.

This film works best with its dark humor. The dramatic sequences were not that great mostly and it was not an outstanding thriller either, but that whole tongue-in-cheek approach is well done. That intro was pretty entertaining with the botched shooting. All in all, I recommend watching it. I just wish the second half of the film could have been half as superb as the first.

I am sure that there are many people who will be annoyed by this ¨Teutonic Tarantino¨ or ¨Coen Brothers go to Carpathian¨ knock off. I, however, find that because the creation is so replete with references to other (highly acclaimed) films, it really does do justice to Tarantino, precisely by paying this sort of tribute to the director who has openly claimed to rip-off other films all the time and everywhere.

Yes, the clichés abound, with easily recognizable scenes from Scarface, Fargo, Pulp Fiction, The Shining... the list goes on and on. But that´s precisely what makes this film worth watching. It´s not the hit men who make the story here but metafilmic references such as the Big Boss, who riffs off (rips off?) Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.

The setting is also gorgeous. Resplendent beauty as the site of limitless corruption. Ending on an upbeat, we eventually are made to see that even seasoned hit men may still have a shred of soul, somewhere deep down inside.