‘Cold Pursuit’ is an action thriller which landed on the streaming platform earlier this month to mixed reviews

Liam Neeson’s action thriller ‘Cold Pursuit’ has returned to Netflix but viewers have been taken aback about how much darker it is than they remembered. The 2019 film made $76.3 million and became a box-office flop but Neeson, 71, from Co Antrim, received positive reviews from most critics for his performance playing the lead role.

The ‘Taken’ star features alongside Emmy Rossum, Julia Jones, and Tom Bateman in the two-hour flick based around a snowplow driver out for revenge after his son’s death as he takes out members of a drug cartel. Following a short hiatus, Cold Pursuit has made a comeback on Netflix, but viewers are shocked by how intense the “brutal” plot is.

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, one person wrote: “Rewatching the Liam Neeson film. A lot darker and funnier than I remember,” while another added: “No 1 movie is Cold Pursuit with Liam Neeson. We watched it last night. Not great, just OK. Pretty violent.”

A third commented: “Watching Cold Pursuit. It’s the brutal snowplow driver vengeance movie I didn’t know I needed. Basically an ultra dark side Mr Plow.” Some watches compared the film to ‘Taken’, released in 2009, about a retired CIA operative crossing the globe to rescue his kidnapped teenage daughter

Neeson plays a father avenging the murder of his son in the action flick (Image: spashnews.com)

One Twitter user wrote: “Watched the movie Cold Pursuit with Liam Neeson. All movies seem to be spin-offs of the original Taken,” and another seconded: “Same storyline with Cold Pursuit. Give it a 6/10. Watch when bored with nothing else on.” Another person said: “Just like every movie he’s done since Taken, it’s just another remake.”

It hasn’t exactly been a great run for Neeson as of late, with his recent movie Retribution also panned by critics as a whole. Another recent Nesson picture, In the Land of Saint and Sinner, was criticized.

Cold Pursuit was Neeson’s worst film debut since ‘Taken’, suggesting that the actor’s reign as a “prolific genre” was declining, according to The Hollywood Reporter in 2019. ‘Cold Pursuit’ took to Netflix earlier this month.

In a recent interview with Conan O’Brien, Neeson told a hilarious-but-inappropriate story about his childhood growing up in Ireland, which you can read here.