Film Review | The Frozen Ground

It's one of the great ironies of life that the films 'based on a true story' turn out to be the most predictable and cliché affairs of them all. It's probably all down to Hollywood editing.

In theory all of our lives could be hammered into movie-friendly shape with a few nips, tucks and chisels to our biography: cut all the boring bits out and you are likely to find the beginning, middle and end rhythm that's so familiar to us thanks to, in large part, the cinema.

But the problem is that these boring bits are in fact what define and distinguish us as individuals - the moments of hesitation, of frustration, of quiet sadness and small triumph.

It's usually the business of great art to examine and expand on these in compelling ways, while the mass-market dross ignores and ploughs through them in order to layer on contrived plot mechanics that are only exciting on the surface and forgotten as soon as they're consumed.

Which makes The Frozen Ground - a film based on a real-life Alaskan serial killer whose grisly tale unspooled during the mid-80s - all the more tragic.

In deciding to tell the story in the most rudimentary way imaginable, rookie director Scott Walker robs it of all potential idiosyncrasy, in favour of churning out a procedural thriller so pat it scans like an extended episode of Criminal Minds.

To his friends and neighbours in Anchorage, Alaska, Robert Hansen (John Cusack) is as normal as they come: a quiet and affable chap who works as baker and has an impressive hunting record, while also boasting a devoted wife and two children.

But when a young prostitute, Cindy Paulson (Vanessa Hudgens) barely escapes from Hansen's clutches with her life, a different picture starts to emerge.

Coinciding with the discovery of several dead bodies - all of young women - in a far-flung valley accessible only by plane, Cindy's story to the police should, for all intents and purposes, lead the authorities to trace the pattern back to Hansen.

But partly because Hansen is such a meek and likable character and partly because the evidence against his is circumstantial, the case appears to be heading towards a dead end.

Until, that is, detective Jack Halcombe (Nicolas Cage) steps in.

Though the bare-bones plot of The Frozen Ground tallies perfectly with any number of similar examples of the serial-killer genre, the sheer number of victims mowed down and hidden by Hansen - he is estimated to have murdered 17 girls - and an as-yet-unexplained motivation for his behaviour make for great cinematic fodder.

Sadly, however, the team behind the film version is happy to languish in the scarce plot, and they appear to be unwilling to get really dirty with the true darkness within.

Though a psychological fetishisation of serial killers is always dangerous - and also becoming trite at this point - delving into some of the neuroses that may or may not have led Hansen to go on a killing spree could have just made the experience more engaging... or at least disturbing enough to be memorable.

(The script also upends its own premise: supporting characters are left to telegraph the idea that Hansen is a nice guy, but he comes across as jittery at best, hostile at worst, during the short scenes depicting his 'normal' life.)

It's only because of Cusack that The Frozen Ground rises - however marginally - above straight-to-DVD level dross. It's a shrewd piece of casting, with the actor deliberately playing against type (he pretty much dominated the market when it came to self-deprecating, quarter-life-crisis-suffering males).

A film made from Hansen's perspective would have made full use of Cusack's abilities.