Icefall (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Stefan RuzowitzkyRelease Date(s)
2025 (January 6, 2026)Studio(s)
Arclight Films/Top Film/Aura Entertainment (Decal Releasing)- Film/Program Grade: D-
- Video Grade: B-
- Audio Grade: B+
- Extras Grade: F
Review
Icefall is so by-the-numbers it may have been written by AI prompts. It’s really an awful film. I’m sorry, but nothing about this film is new or entertaining. If you’re curious, here are the numbers—One: film opens with a surgical heist with black clad gunmen featuring ALL the bad types you can ask for. Tough capable chick in relationship with punk rock type—check/check. Dark, smoldering leader with anger issues who will not hesitate to kill you to make a point, check. Hesitant possibly good-hearted bad guy who must be yelled at to join in fully to the bad things happening around them, check. And, of course, the possible druggie who can’t be trusted but ends up in a job that requires nothing but trust who we see steals something from the haul, checkity check check. Two: then we’re introduced to a quiet sad man (Joel Kinnaman) who lives in the wilds of Montana next to a lake making do, staring at an impossibly preserved but also damaged just enough photo of a beautiful woman while he lives off the land, hunting and fishing. Questions abound about him. Is he stable? Is he a secret badass? Is Joel Kinnaman ever going to happen for audiences? The answers: maybe, of course, and probably, nah. Three: we’re introduced to a working mom AND game warden for the government AND indigenous Blackfoot local all wrapped into one cost effective character (Cara Jade Myers) who stands up to corruption and will not be made to move out of the direction of righteousness. And Four: there’s a mysterious behind the scenes bad-bad bad guy (Danny Huston) who arranges the heist and puts way too much trust into a new pilot freshly hired to transport the stolen goods from point A to point B. He also conveniently places a huge blocky tracer with a bright flashing red light, so the audience can fully see it glued onto one of the crates. It should be mentioned that there’s a silent Five to our list: the space between points A and B is right over a certain Blackfoot reservation in Montana which contains said lake mentioned above in relation to quiet sad man. Will there be a lighting storm? Oh sure. So with all that, you can guess what happens next and yeah, that’s really that. Plane crashes, time passes and quiet sad man finds plane and money, game warden finds quiet sad man, tracer is triggered and bad guys find game warden and quiet sad man. Quiet sad man has those secret skills I mentioned, but game warden is one with nature which helps because all this takes place on a frozen lake entering early thaw and she can “read” the ice. Handy skill. Oh, but then the really bad guy shows up. And blah blah blah. See, the numbers all add up and it goes exactly the way it should and everything happens so that you can doomscroll on your device while this plays and you can pay attention to the audio, looking up here and there until the credits roll and you can totally forget about it until someone asks later that day or weekend if you watched anything new and you can sit there with a dumb look on your face and think to yourself: yeah, I did, what they hell was that movie called? Who was in it? Shit. Damn it. And then you say, you did watch something, but for the life of me, I can’t remember. It was Icefall. You watched Icefall starring Joel Kinnaman. And you didn’t enjoy it and that’s why you forgot.
If this movie disappeared, I don’t think anyone would notice. Kinda sorta: “if a quiet sad man with secret skills falls into the ice, does he make a sound?” No. Is that mean? Sorry, but I believe it’s true. And that’s the review.
Making all of this worse is, it’s so clearly shot on a Volume. I’m not sure any of Icefall was shot in the real world. Wikipedia says it was shot in Bulgaria, and maybe there are some establishing shots dropped in, but I think all the actors were nice and warm and dry in a Bulgarian Volume studio. As such, the video is crisp and clean, new wave digital looking. Looks good on a big monitor. Whites are clear, and any anomalies I saw were just chalked up to the blurriness you get with improperly shot Volume projects. Sound is English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio with all the engaging wilderness effects you will need to hear to get fully immersed. Also on board are English subs and autoplay trailers for upcoming Aura Entertainment films Trap House, Code 3 and Coyotes.
- Todd Doogan