Detective Harry Hole has been struggling with drinking and is no longer given any cases. When Katrine Bratt is transferred from Bergen he ends up helping her with an investigation into a sadistic serial killer.
When it is snowing in Oslo and around Norway women seem to go missing, over many years this has been happening but no one has really put them all together until now. Harry and Katrine begin the case which links to Gert Rafto from almost a decade before, will they be able to piece everything together before it is too late?
That actually sounds a lot better than it actually is when watching this film. In reality it is dull, slow and things just don't piece together very well. The murders aren't always totally the same and the snowman which is built near the crime which has happened a little creepy, but not actually mentioned when looking at the case at all. Like come on why even bother having it in if no one in the film is going to mention it? Especially after Harry received a letter which had the snowman in a picture?
The women kinda have a link that they all have children? Or so it first seems but it is actually that they have children who they won't tell or don't know who the father is. Which seems a little bit strange at times, but I guess links a little bit to a scene if you really think about it. You get bored with thinking about it though, as things just get a little bit messier and crazier.
So many different things going on in an attempt to confuse the viewer and make them unsure of well what is actually going on altogether to be honest. I guess that is another problem with the film? It has many more though the fact that everyone is speaking English in Norway? I imagine that is something that will really annoy Norwegians and highly so, when it is based on a book and set mainly in Oslo. In some ways it made me think about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
The fact that it is also very dull and boring from start to finish doesn't help, especially with very mundane performances from all of the cast. Yes, even Fassbender disappoints in this one but I guess he wasn't really given a character with much to work with. I will give the film praise for something though, it just looked amazing and beautiful with the snow and mountain shots. Honestly snow really does make everything look picturesque and incredible, just a shame that we weren't then given a film that matched up with that and it just totally failed instead.
That probably sounds totally crazy when you look at the cast that was put together for this film as it really does have some big names. All miss the mark for me and it really is disappointing. Come on there was actually no point in calling it the Snowman if it wasn't going to be mentioned and used consistently for me! One final thing, what on earth has happened to Val Kilmer's voice and face????
