The Snowman

It's unusual for a whodunnit to have such a powerful sedative effect as The Snowman. How director Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Let the Right One In) has come to this is the only mystery worth solving. Based on Jo Nesbo's bestseller, the seventh in his Harry Hole series, and set across Oslo and Bergen, the story sees mothers going missing, with snowmen found at the scene and grisly discoveries to follow. Michael Fassbender is adept at illuminating troubled, taciturn men, but as lead investigator Hole he draws a blank. The film strips the book back to its bare bones, its scares are lacklustre, the accents are inconsistent and the unmasking of the killer totally unsurprising. A dishevelled Val Kilmer unwittingly steals the show with a performance of breathtaking strangeness. There's a smattering of such amusement, but this is more listless than laughable. In the absence of suspense, further chuckles may well have been welcome; to that end, it might have been the smarter move to follow Kilmer round for the duration instead.