Thin Ice (originally and more aptly titled The Convincer) is a quirky dramedy/thriller about conning people. Greg Kinnear carries the entire film as insurance agent Mickey Prohasta. From the first scene, you know his job is to convince you, the audience, that you need something even if its not based in the truth. Kinnear gets a lot of mileage out of double meanings, quiet moments of observation, and a look that can only be described as the mental motherboard short-circuiting every single time something goes wrong.
Mickey Prohasta hires a new employee (a perfectly cast David Harbour) out of the blue at an insurance convention. This employee finds a potential client named Gorvy Hauer (Alan Arkin in crazy old man camp) who wants insurance so his TV will be fixed. By chance, Mickey discovers that Gorvy has in his possession an old violin worth thousands of dollars. He sets a scheme into motion to rob Gorvy of his violin and his bank account through a series of insurance transactions.
What starts as a dark comedy stuck in an unfortunate loop of recurring events transforms into one of the stranger high stakes thrillers I've seen. Thin Ice just twists everything you know in one dark scene and suddenly puts master conman Mickey Prohasta on the defensive. It's a welcome turn of events that allows Kinnear to humanize a rather vile character.
Writer/director Jill Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing) returns to the big screen after a ten year absence to bring Thin Ice to life. Despite some occasionally clunky dialogue (or what could actually be an inability to reign in an improv-friendly cast), Sprecher manages to find the life this story desperately needs to work at all. She and her co-writer Karen Sprecher tie a very broad, ambitious, and unpredictable story together in a believable way.
Needless to say, everything you see happens for a good reason because Mickey Prohasta is telling you a story. It doesn't always add up and that's the point. Mickey is spinning a very unfortunate series of events--caused by his own greed and stupidity--to come out as the character you always want to root for from the moment you lay eyes on him. This perspective choice makes Thin Ice a lot more palatable than its "steal from the elderly because I can, that's why" premise should ever be.
There is a coda scene at the end of the film that I find rather troublesome. It's linked to the story, yes, but it assumes that the audience couldn't possibly understand the actual conceit of the film on their own. In some ways, this kind of scene was needed. It's just this particular version of that necessary conclusion feels like a wasted opportunity.
Thin Ice is an indie film that makes the most of a very limited budget through great casting and a solid screenplay. It's not a revolutionary picture by any means. It is, however, an entertaining diversion that will slowly melt away when all is revealed in the final moments.
Rating: 7/10
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