Disappointing
Summary
Donnie Yen gives a moving performance however, Polar Rescue doesn’t really have much in the way of action or thrills generally leaving you with nothing by the end.
Plot: After a young boy gets lost during a bitter snowstorm, his frantic parents (Donnie Yen, Cecilia Han) seek help from the local police, who are soon faced with a desperate race against the clock as hours tick by with no sign of the child.
Review: I’m not really sure why I’m reviewing this as Polar Rescue isn’t an action movie, but it does at least star Donnie Yen and it has a couple of fights. Don’t get your hopes up as it’s actually Donnie getting beaten up by other people as in this movie he is just a desperate father looking for his missing son; he’s no martial artist and there are no major action scenes.
We do get a well-executed avalanche sequence but most of the movie involves the so called rescuers being unhelpful dicks to Donnie and as the story progresses we find out that perhaps he isn’t the perfect husband and father. It has a few nice dramatic moments and Yen never disappoints in terms of performances, but is anyone really wanting to see him in a movie like this? Personally, I wish he’d just hurry up with the already announced Flashpoint 2.
So many of the supporting characters in Polar Rescue are just complete assholes for no reason and they don’t feel like real people. The sheer lack of interest anyone seems to have in finding this missing child is surprising. Admittedly the kid is annoying, so I didn’t care if they found him or not, but I guess neither did the characters in this film either.
It’s only an hour and 40 minutes but Polar Rescue feels longer and after the joyless slog you go through, we deserve an uplifting ending which doesn’t come, leaving you feeling utterly miserable.
Overall, Polar Rescue isn’t much fun to sit through and is definitely a one time watch; so many of the characters are just dicks for the sake of it and a few times I actually laughed especially when one of the rescuers randomly attacked Donnie Yen for no reason. There are no big action scenes either, so it’s not one I’d recommend.
