Hold the Dark

Over the time, I’m discovering that Netflix doesn’t mean only good movies. Sometimes it also means average movies and sometimes even bad ones. However, Hold the Dark fortunately belongs among the better part of Netflix production. It has a solid atmosphere, and if it didn’t last more than two hours, the audience wouldn’t have the time to be bored. But as it is, there are moments when the characters act like retards or worse. In the second half of the film, it however gains some pleasant momentum and the ending is nice. The action finale makes it into better average; without it, I might have thought that someone was trying to make a rip-off of Wind River. When watching this film, I didn’t know yet that ‘rip-off’ is Netflix’s favorite word. (04/13/2020)

I guess I expected a perfect viewing experience from the snowy American North, similar to Wind River, but Hold The Dark didn’t quite meet my expectations. The landscape was there, and everyone must admit that snow in detective stories complements the atmosphere well; I can’t fault the film on that account. The actors also delivered commendably, with local police officer James Badge Dale being a surprise. However, the story and the plot just didn’t help much; I was expecting something more refined and convincing. Instead, I got a mix of disgruntled locals, some local mythology, and a few murders. In the end, it didn’t come together at all, resulting in a sudden and especially open-ended conclusion (which was the most frustrating part). A few scenes, where brutality was definitely not held back, pulled the film out of the average gray zone (the impressive M60 vs police squad shootout is a rare sight in films), but it had the potential to become a brilliant genre piece. I give it 65%. (11/04/2018)

I was looking forward to the new Wind River, but it turned out to be a disappointment. I'm probably not intellectually sophisticated enough, as I didn't really get what the film was about. It was like an abstract poem by a well-known poet, which we were supposed to analyze at school and find out what the author had meant. Just like back then, I eventually realized I didn’t really care. The only memorable moment for me was the excellently filmed fight against the machine gun nest, but the rest of the film felt like a blur of often unrelated situations and the ending went totally over my head. (10/29/2018)

An atmospheric thriller that excels with excellent action scenes and a slightly demonic Alexander Skarsgård. Comparisons to Wind River may be fitting in terms of the locations chosen and the murder mystery plot, but otherwise Hold the Dark forges its own path and is more of a meditative thriller with mystery elements than a murder mystery. The plot is told very slowly, but there are some really intense passages and the whole narrative is interestingly framed with metaphors. It's just a pity that the final impression was a bit weaker than I initially expected. (10/16/2018)

It's a shame such a pure and beautifully crafted raw survival drama has such a mind-fuck of a nothing much to say, wannabe mystery screenplay. The main plot line is lacking, but all the other features (set design, atmosphere, action sequences) are excellent. There's been a bit too much of Wind River lately, but it's still an enthralling thing. (10/17/2018)