Ski Hard

Picked up this video at a local outlet, it was on the 'two for a dollar' rack and I needed a second movie to make the deal. Considering that I've already seen "Downhill Racer", "Hot Dog", "Ski Patrol", and "Reno and the Doc" (and others whose names escape me), I figured that at worst it was just going to be more of the same.

Well, frankly, it was; but how many different ways can someone film people skiing downhill without it becoming predictable? I was pleasantly surprised to find this Canadian offering to be fairly tight and well-written (the hour and a half was done before I realized) as well as mildly amusing. As a skier myself -- you can't ride a bike in Wisconsin all year round -- I could appreciate the skiing scenes, and the attitudes portrayed by a couple of the characters (especially the super-skier 'Spider') were definitely spot-on.

All in all, it's not a great movie. Five out of ten is, in my opinion, the mark for an average film. And of course, unless you live in Canada, you've probably never heard of any of the cast members. But if you enjoyed the antics in "Ski Patrol" or "Hot Dog: The Movie", you would probably also enjoy giving this film a look.

I randomly stumbled upon this movie 6 years ago, when working at blockbuster. It was on sale for $1.99, and I really bought it as a joke. This movie will be a tough find but if you get the opportunity to see it, do it.

This movie will never be up for the AFI top 100, but it's a lot of fun. It's has the typical guy meets girl, guy falls for girl under tone. In addition to that it has a comedic edge to it.

It's funny like Super Troopers but the children can watch it. It has the romance of Pretty Woman, but not enough to make men vomit. It's an all around "cool" movie.

This is the first review I've given, I just had to give some love to this movie.

Go Downhill Willie.

A truly dopey story about a big ski competition sponsored by the sport drink "Jock Pop", which is like Gatorade. Keith Coogan plays the title character, a truly dim witted individual. He competes as an amateur in this race in order to help his friend avoid foreclosure on a business in a part of the world (presumably Alaska or upper Canada) where you have to take a plane to frequent the business. The character, not Mr. Coogan, is so annoying. The lady skier in the film is Staci Keenan, who you'll look at and wonder where you saw her before (I had to check: She was on the television shows "My Two Dada" and "Step By Step"). Now she is grown up and is a pretty lady. The best thing about the film is the scenery, it looks like it was filmed in Whistler, British Columbia. Otherwise, this film is barely good for a chuckle, so its best to avoid, unless you're a fan of ski movies.

We chose to see this DVD in the hopes of cheering us up with a nice comedy, not so. I did not laugh once, I did however mutter in disgust on several occasions. This is the worst movie I have ever seen by far, clichè after clichè not to mention horrible acting by Keith Cogan (Willie Jones) which cannot be described as non other than senseless drivel. So to end my comment on this movie, For the love of god, stay away!!

Keith Coogan portrays a goofy naive small towner who has an unusual knack for skiing and skiing fast. He heads off to compete in a ski race for a big money prize sponsored by a sports beverage that seems to be intolerable to drink. His competition is made up of Airheads, Egomaniacs, Mamas boys and the like. While this 1995 film is intended to be a comedy it has some accuracy in it. While watching the past three winter Olympics many of the ski racers from both this country and abroad exhibit many of the same traits as do the bizarre characters in this movie. There seems little argument that ski racers are perhaps the most spoiled, least disciplined, biggest whiners of any sport in the world with certainly the poorest sportsmanship qualities. That's why this film which is intended to be a comedy has some accuracy to it when depicting ski racers. If the films Downhill Racer and Dumb and Dumber were to be spliced together this would be the result.