Film Feedback
New This WeekAround TownMusicFilmArtTheaterNews & FeaturesFood & DrinkAstrology
  HOME
NEW THIS WEEK
EDITORS' PICKS
LISTINGS
NEWS & FEATURES
MUSIC
FILM
ART
BOOKS
THEATER
DANCE
TELEVISION
FOOD & DRINK
ARCHIVES
LETTERS
PERSONALS
CLASSIFIEDS
ADULT
ASTROLOGY
PHOENIX FORUM DOWNLOAD MP3s

  E-Mail This Article to a Friend
EXTREME OPS

This ersatz XXX sends two punked-out extreme snowboarders (Jana Pallaske and Joe Absolom) and a tight-laced Olympic skier (Bridgette Wilson) to the top of the Austrian Alps to film stunts for a TV commercial. Most of it’s carefree snow frolics, though the money shots are filmed along the perilous hairline of an invoked avalanche. The extremers have no problem with the rough-and-tumble conditions, but Wilson’s gold-medalist is in a world of woes without groomed sloops. Their real problem, however, comes when they run into an escaped Serbian war criminal (Klaus Löwitsch) who doesn’t want his whereabouts known.

Directed by Christian Duguay, the film does offer some Warren Miller/extreme thrills — and it should, since 178 stunt men (some of them real X-Gamers) were employed — but beyond that, the plot gasps for a pulse. The extremers have no edge once their boards come off, the Slobodan Milosevic angle is ill-developed, not to mention preposterous, and about the only the non-slope running titillation is the gal-on-gal hot-tub kiss between Wilson and Pallaske. Veteran Brit actors Rufus Sewell and Rupert Graves do add some thespian punch as the intrepid video director and the pampered producer, but it’s not nearly enough to keep this one from extremely bombing. (93 minutes)

BY TOM MEEK

Issue Date: December 5 - 12, 2002
Back to the Movies table of contents.
  E-Mail This Article to a Friend

home | feedback | about the phoenix | find the phoenix | advertising info | privacy policy | the masthead | work for us

 © 2002 Phoenix Media Communications Group