Fuori pista!

If you're looking for a fun ski comedy, go with Ski School. Ski Patrol is the lame red-headed stepbrother of ski comedies. It tries to be funny but it's anything but. Tries way too hard.

It may not appeal to many viewers but I have always loved this film. To me it really captures the energy that being out on the slopes generates. There have been some awful reviews but its a comedy, its bound to be a little stupid & it gets my vote every time. There are many scenes that get me laughing each time & i've had the same VHS for years, since it was out in the video stores. My favourite if i had to choose would be the singing contest that Stanley and the ice man storm with their vibrant energy & hilarious attitude. I'm an art student and its a favourite of all my friends. My only complaint is that its not on DVD, all the out-takes, bloopers, interviews (there must have been some) and all the extras that everyone loves on DVD. Its a must see & don't compare it to conventional comedy thats now so old hat that its not funny anymore, this is a film that stands out on its own & deserves more respect than it had before. Re-release it on DVD please!

At the Snowy Peaks Ski Lodge, wise cracking slacker Jerry Cramer (Roger Rose) works Ski Patrol with a group of other misfits who are under the command of tightly wound head Murray (Leslie Jordan). When land developer Sam Marris (Martin Mull) sets his sights on Snowy Peaks, Marris makes a deal with Ski School instructor Lance Finkmayer (Corby Timbrook) to sabotage Snowy Peaks safety requirements so the current lease holder, Pops (Ray Walston), will lose his claim and allow Marris to turn Snowy Peaks into resort town Marristown.

Ski Patrol comes to us from producer Paul Maslansky best known for his creation and curation of the Police Academy series. With grosses dipping with subsequent installments, Maslansky tried to revisit the formula and applying it to the world of skiing. Maslansky initially intended to expand Ski Patrol, much like Police Academy, with two sequels and a spin-off TV series, but when the movie only made $8 million that never came to be though supposedly there's been some talk of a Ski Patrol sequel/reboot with the team behind Workaholics. Ski Patrol isn't offensive or obnoxious, but it's yet another rehash on an overplayed formula that has long since worn out its welcome.

I will say that some of the cast do bring energy to their performances with T. K. Carter, Paul Feig, and Leslie Jordan bringing some decent smile worthy moments every so often, but aside from a decent long payoff joke involving Leslie Jordan's character taking "growth pills" there's a number of floundering gags such as Jordan repeatedly tripping over a dog named Dumpster (to whom he's also allergic) or a grating performance by Sean Sullivan as a character named Suicide whose schtick is he's part of a band where every member is him and two masks named Buried and Slaughter who he voices and lead to long drawn out ski sequences that aren't all that funny because they don't really have jokes and feel like visual noice that's been put in as a placeholder.

Ski Patrol takes the Police Academy formula and goes through all the expected motions you've seen since the first Police Academy movie and its sequels and rip-off in Moving Violations. It's hard to even muster up much feeling for this movie because it's not obnoxious or offensive enough to elicit any kind of visceral reaction and just feels like a tired entry in an equally tired formula.

This movie didn't score well at the Oscars and there's no doubt why. It is a stupid movie but I did laugh at one scene. It's when Murray, a short ski-instructor, who's about 5'4" is given some growth formula from his intructees. They switch the hem on his pants and lower the height line on his wall to make him believe that he's actually growing. One night at a bar Murray decides to go off at how tall he is and that's when the guys really get him. Murray awakes to find that he's too big for his own bed. He bursts through the ceiling of an Elf's Dorm beside a Santa display screaming as the jokers take pictures of him. This ONE scene almost saves the entire movie.

I saw this movie years ago, when I had no idea what was going on, and I loved it. I've just watched it again for an article I was writing and damn, it's trash!

But it's wonderfully sill trash and everyone with a silly 90's sense of humor will enjoy it. It's not as funny as it should be, and they miss so many tricks that I think are obvious, but hey, it's all easy in hindsight I suppose.

I won't write too much here as it'll ruin my article!, but it really is worth a watch if you don't take things too seriously!