“Dead of Winter” is “a sturdy action thriller with a twist”, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times . The curveball in question comes courtesy of Emma Thompson, a much-loved actress but not one you’d normally expect to see in “a movie that leaves your ears ringing with gunshots” and which invites comparison to the Coen brothers ’ “Fargo”. She plays Barb, a kindly widow who has set out to a frozen lake in Minnesota to scatter her late husband’s ashes. Barb gets lost on snowy back roads, however, and finds herself at an isolated cabin where, it turns out, a teenage girl is being held hostage.

Realising that she is the girl’s only hope, Barb determines to rescue her, but this is far from simple, said Jessica Kiang in Variety . There’s no phone signal in this desolate spot, her c

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