THE SNOWMAN (2017)

A young boy who lives with his mom in what appears to be the set for The Thing from Another World prepares for a history lesson from his Uncle Jonas, who comes to visit every week. Uncle Jonas drills the boy on key historical dates, then whenever the boy gets one wrong, Jonas hits his mom. It's what education professionals would call "20th-century learning," and what Betsy DeVos would call "proficiency." Then the boy finds Jonas and his mom in bed together. Mom tells Jonas, "He doesn't know you're his father." At least one more traumatic childhood event happens. The opening credits roll.

The boy grows up to be either the serial killer or the troubled detective; we don't know for sure until the end. Someone in Oslo has been murdering women and building snowmen, not necessarily in that order. Sometimes he builds the snowman first as a menacing portent (if the stings on Marco Beltrami's soundtrack are to be believed). Sometimes he builds them afterward to conceal severed heads and other body parts. He sends taunting letters to the authorities, ominously addressed to "Mister Police," which I assume sounded not-ridiculous in the original Norwegian. Posters for the film bear the tagline "You could have saved her I gave you all the clues," but it should not be presumed that there is a "her" to be saved or "clues" to be given.

The case, as it always tends to in movies like this, falls upon the biggest train wreck of a human being in the police department, a functioning alcoholic named Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender). I can attest that this name certainly sounds less ridiculous in the original Norwegian, since in Jo Nesbo's novel it's supposed to be pronounced "Hoo-leh." Yet the English-speaking cast pronounces it "Hole," like the thing in the ground. How this pronunciation made it through the production I cannot imagine. I know that the director, Tomas Alfredson, is Swedish, so I'm not counting out a Sweden/Norway rivalry.

Hole teams up with a younger detective named Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson), who admires his work (we have to take her word for it). They find that the killer may have ties to a wealthy businessman (J.K. Simmons) who's closely involved in the campaign for Oslo to host the World Cup, and whose obsession with younger women makes him one of the chaster characters in the film.

Meanwhile, Detective Hole reunites with his ex-girlfriend Rakel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her son Oleg (Michael Yates), who sees him as a father figure of sorts. You see, his alcoholism drove them apart, and he's trying to make amends. If you guessed that Hole's complicated paternal relationship with Oleg draws a parallel between him and the killer, then oh boy Mister Police, you really have gotten all the clues.

Mister Police would also certainly see the clues of a troubled production here, even without reading background information on the film. Alfredson, whose credits boast the excellent Let the Right One In and the convoluted but captivating Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, went on record to say that the film was rushed into shooting and that he failed to shoot 10-15% of the script. This would explain why certain sub-plots and supporting characters are dropped, like Chloe Sevigny's inexplicable appearance as two twins. I also got the sneaking suspicion that every time Thelma Schoonmaker (that's right) edited in a shot of a purportedly terrifying snowman, it was to cover up some gap in the footage.

The general malaise that pervades The Snowman does emphasize its few good qualities. I'm usually happy to see Val Kilmer anywhere, so his scenes--as yet another alcoholic cop in a parallel storyline--are somewhat redeeming. I read that he was recovering from throat cancer during filming, which explains why his voice is dubbed. It does not explain why the filmmakers seem to have dubbed his voice without looking at his lips, nor why they hired a Jeff Bridges soundalike to do it. It's also hard to be totally dissatisfied when J.K. Simmons is on screen; even when his character hits the heights of ridiculousness, he's never boring. And I have never before seen a movie so brazen as to try to use Hot Butter's "Popcorn" as a horror theme.

Aside from that, the movie only entertains through its awfulness, which includes but is not limited to a baffling scene in which Harry Hole subdues a character (not the killer, or even a rival) by jumping on them, Chris Farley-style. Fassbender does his damnedest but he cannot make Harry Hole not laughable, especially in a pathetic climax in which at least one character is tied to a chair, because dammit, when a screenwriter wants to tie a character to a chair, he does it.

The total belly-flop that is The Snowman is at the very least an abrupt reminder that detective thrillers, all the rage nowadays, are difficult to do right. A movie like Seven is a rarity, in that it maintains an uneasy balance between gruesome fascination and moral righteousness. So does The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, another Nordic franchise-starter with an American version that was a dud. I don't think we'll be seeing another Harry Hole adventure anytime soon.

* out of ****

Spoiler alert: Oslo gets the World Cup.