Snowman's Land

A small-time hit-man finds himself in deep trouble when he leaves the city for a job in the snowy countryside in Tomasz Thomson's Snowman's Land, a tale that combines low-key comedy with brutal violence. Shaggy-haired Walter (Jürgen Rissmann) is instructed to make himself scarce after botching an assignment, so he heads for a remote region in the Carpathian Mountains, where he's paired with wild-eyed Micky (Thomas Wodianka) to guard a resort owned by mob boss Berger (Reiner Schöne). When Berger's sultry wife shows up, she and Micky engage in rough sex that kills her, so the pair hide the body and claim ignorance. But Berger tries to beat the truth out of them until his Russian enforcer decides to take over the boss's empire for himself—thus initiating a game of cross and double-cross marked by plenty of bloody deadpan farce. Although the film suffers somewhat from too many long scenes of Walter and Micky trying to find ways of amusing themselves in Berger's sprawling, empty resort, Thomson demonstrates a solid knack for mixing goofiness and gore, and Rissmann adopts a suitably dour and grouchy persona as the hapless protagonist. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a “making-of” featurette (20 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a violent dark comedy.] (F. Swietek)