James Fritz Booth
The trailer for Cold Weather got me really, really excited. I was hoping for a cool, different mystery film. However, when I got to watching it, I found myself... wanting. Cold Weather had a lot of potential, but it's lost in a quagmire of an uninteresting mystery, unlikable characters, dreary cinematography and a badly constructed script. I was hoping for this kid to be some sort of cool Sherlock Holmes-type, but he came off (to me at least) as a loser. Why should we be interested in this guy if he has nothing to offer us but mumbles and misery? It's almost as if he wants to be a detective, but... isn't. The film kinda picks up near the end with the car sequence, but it's far too late into the film and not long enough. And that... ENDING... ARGH!Somebody on here keeps saying that the film isn't about the mystery. But if it's not about the mystery, and the characters are just a bunch of mopes, why should we watch?An Utter Waste of Time. Skip it. I recommend in place of this movie the films BRICK and ZERO EFFECT.
Aristides-2
I pushed the player's eject button after 20 minutes, which seemed like 40 minutes of my life. Within the movie's first few minutes I noted to my wife that the director had his camera linger too long on scenes and speculated that we possibly may be in for a tedious experience from a too self-involved filmmaker. Random thoughts along the way: Early on we had our attention diverted from the story by trying to visually learn who the ex was and who the sister was; a casting fault occasionally made by a director without a lot of experience. A major ongoing problem was the dullard character Doug; it's very, very difficult to stay interested in a banal character. A Sherlock Holmes 'book'? Did the writer mean a compilation of the short novellas and short stories? And now, the scene that had me throw in the towel: Doug and Carlos return to the "motel" room (the characters used 'motel' and 'hotel' interchangeably) that had been occupied by the missing Rachel and they discover that the door, previously opened, is now locked and the room is ablaze with light. What would you do in this situation? Well, of course, you'd knock on the door to see if she had returned. But not these two dopes, they instead do something illogical and thereby inexorably advance the story/plot.
GeneralUrsus
If you enjoy watching a series of long, protracted establishing shots with very little story then this is the film for you. For the first forty minutes it's as if the director waltzed away from the camera and forgot to yell cut, as the same screen image continues into a oblivion. These drawn out shots happen frequently during the film and it is about as entertaining as staring at a wall for five minutes.Eventually, a mystery presents itself when the main character's ex-girlfriend disappears. There is one specific series of clues he follows involving a set of numbers. At first glance it appears to be a clever twist but, on reflection it is such an obscure reference and does not relate to any of the personality traits of the characters.The rest of the amateur detective work is rather pedestrian, there are really no surprises. The acting here isn't bad, it's just the script which doesn't contain any surprises or twists. The mystery portion ends fairly abruptly and by that time if you're not fast asleep you will be wondering why you ended up watching this film. There are some nice establishing shots, of waterfalls Oregon scenery but, otherwise an utter bore. How the critics gave this good reviews I will never know. Perhaps they all fell asleep as well and dreamed they saw a good film.
jaysinclair105
This film was described by Spin Magazine (in a 3-and-a-half star review) as a mystery that takes its time. I'm all for that. But did it have to take SO MUCH time to resolve a mystery that was UNINVOLVING and BORING? Just another bunch of aimless 30-somethings in the damp upper Northwest who apparently never shave or wash their hair, mumbling their way through life and never doing anything even remotely interesting. Believe me, I've sat through plenty of quirky indie films with little complaint, but I was literally shouting at my TV screen when this DVD ended. An hour and forty minutes of my life utterly wasted. I will avoid this talentless filmmaker like the plague for the rest of my days. SKIP THIS MOVIE!!!!!
AD
