Aspen Extreme

*** out of ****:

As a skier, I'm a little prejudiced to see a movie about skiing, with such good skiing action, and as someone who always thought of Aspen as one of the country's more overrated mountains, I'm happy to see it portrayed in such negative light (no one would ever make such a movie about Vail or Sun Valley, for example). Anyway, on to the film:

The film centers around two friends stuck in low-paying manual labor jobs, one of which, TJ, suddenly decides to go out and live the American dream. He wants to leave his blue-collar life behind and using his instincts and boldness, attain entrance into the upper echelons of society, in this case, skiing. Knowing he can't do it without his best friend Dexter, by his side, he convinces him in going along. The two embark in Aspen, and fall upon gorgeous women, a job they love, and fame and prestige. Well, at least one of them does. Dexter, although an able skier, does not get the ski instructor job as his friend does, and the two start to drift off onto two different paths. TJ gets all the breaks, and Dexter doesn't, to the point where it tears apart their friendship. One of the big strengths of the movie, was the authenticity and chemistry with which Berg and Gross display as friends, and the interesting, if not somewhat obvious paths, that the two take.

A couple of ladies make their way, into TJ's life on and off, one of which is played very well by Teri Polo, who's drop-dead gorgeous yet down-to-earth in this film, and who provides for one of the films most uplifting moments, when she arrives at Dexter's place right after he's hit rock bottom, and assertively throws his booze away, forces him into the shower, and to go jogging with her, so that he can regain control of his life, even though she always paid a lot more attention to T.J. The story is not afraid to dig into deep levels of tragedy, yet keep a balance, that makes it uplifting overall.

It's set in 1993, but there's a lot of 80s flavor in this. Along with the synthesizer-dominated score, T.J, is to a lesser extent the kind of Tom Cruise/Mel Gibson/Kurt Russell-like hero, who's just booming with masculinity. He's overconfident, he doesn't back down from a fight (including a fight with a comically villanous ski instructor who feels threatened by other good ski instructors, yeah that happens all the time on the ski slopes), he's strong and resilient, he goes full-force after whatever girls come his way, and he's clearly the good guy. On the whole, it's pretty action-packed and filled with plenty of genuine drama that I really do like it.

Bored and not able to sleep, I caught this film on late night television last night. I was intrigued by the opening credits, especially when I saw the names of fine Canadian actor Paul Gross and another favourite Trevor Eve, who starred in the wonderful British mystery series Heat of the Sun. I am also a fan of the old Chicago Hope, and it was nice to see Peter Berg in a very different role.

I am not a ski buff, and this film is not Citizen Kane. However, I found myself enjoying this flawed piece of work very much. Sure, the plot is goofy, implausible, predictable, and full of discontinuities. But I genuinely liked the heroes, took pleasure in their successes, felt sadness in their setbacks. Other reviewers have commented already on the gorgeous location photography and the skiing.

With commercials, this film ran almost 2.5 hours on TV, and I had little difficulty sitting through it. Sure, we all knew there would be a happy ending and the good guy would get the girl, but it still was an enjoyable bit of viewing on the way.

Worth a look if you are not a ski buff but like mindless romance/action. Must-see if skiing is your life.

This was a great movie. I've always thought it was. Like a lot of people have mentioned it's a great skier's movie. I'll watch it a couple of times over the summer along with all of the other ski movies that I either have, i.e. Hot Dog, Warren Miller, etc... It makes one want to get up and change jobs and lifestyle and keeps my powder fever under control until winter arrives again.

I don't agree with some users comments on the soundtrack though. I think the songs on the soundtrack fit the movie very well. In fact I wish the soundtrack was available because I like the songs in this movie, especially, 'Start the Car' by Jude Cole, 'The Driver' by Terry Reid, and 'Best inside you' by David Baerwald.

It is a sad movie with a similar plot as Top Gun in some respects, but I think the strong friendship of TJ and Dexter separates this movie from the testosterone driven Top Gun(which I think is also a great movie). Not to mention this is one of the few ski movies of the 80s/90s that was not a comedy.

Aspen Extreme to me is a genuine classic in that it is one of only few movies that best depicts the cultural, demographic and geographic way of life in a Rocky mountain secluded super ski resort town in the beautiful state of Colorado. In addition, the story itself portrays harmoniously with the real life vision of a young adventurous individual who has made exactly the same decisions that Gross' and Berg's characters had made. Surely there could be equivocal view points to the writer's main intent, however, anyone who has followed, skied or rode the same tracks as Gross' and Berg's characters instantly familiarizes with the care that is taken by the writer in exploiting the liberating experience of leaving home to enter into a world of majestic beauty mixed with a sport that people with a similar passion and drive share interest in. The story as well as the visual effects consistently draw back on the natural grandeur and beauty of the Rockies as well as the emotional evolution that takes place with each changing season while living in such a town that many consider to be a life influencing period in time.

Aspen Extreme is in the mold of movies like All the Right Moves, Youngblood etc. nothing special but just a fun little movie. Paul Gross and Peter Berg are two guys from Michigan who go to Aspen as ski instructors (??!) and explore their new vista. Berg of Chicago Hope and Gross of Due South make an excellent partnership, I found myself rooting for them from the beginning. Gross is the pretty boy who captivates both the rich teaser and the super cute radio jockey (played by the captively cute Teri Polo). The movie is humorous for much of the first half, but then takes a darker turn, and tends to drag on in the second half as well. The ski scenes are okay but I felt like I was watching a specialty adventure sports channel, in other words it was overkill. Otherwise it's just a late night timewaster which I expected to be boring but instead was fun and a good little movie to watch with a lady friend. 5 out of 10.