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'Extreme Ops' sacrifices script for scenery
'Extreme Ops' follows a commercial film crew into the Austrian Alps
Paramount Pictures
Life is too precious to waste on some of the pointless extreme sports celebrated in "Extreme Ops." Navigating the district's byways amidst road rage and lunatic lane-changing is risky enough.
Michael Zaidan's screenplay barely wraps the one-dimensional characters in motivation.
To shoot a camera commercial on digital video, advertising executive Jeffrey (Rupert Graves) and director Ian (Rufus Sewell) gather a stunt cast and camera crew that includes people who have even less of interest to say than themselves.
Exhibiting a death wish are cameraman Will (Devon Sawa), snowboarder Kittie (Jana Pallaske), babe-in-the-woods Silo (Joe Absolom) and downhill gold medalist Chloe (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras).
First we behold them skateboarding on moving trains (how long will it take for this stunt to kill someone?) and dangling in a kayak over a long waterfall. The main stunt will be to trigger an avalanche while hurtling down the Austrian Alps.
An hour after you wonder if the movie is ever going to start, they're confronted in the Alps by Serbian war criminal Pavle (Klaus Lowitsch).
Pavle, who had faked his death in a plane crash, is livid because they caught him on video hiding in the mountains with his girlfriend Yana (Liliana Komorowska) and his etiquette-deficient son Slavko (David Scheller).
Some of the skiing and whirling through the air is photogenic, but as acted by everyone and directed by Christian Duguay, "Extreme Ops" is a major snoozer. Who could possibly care if these characters are stuffed with breadcrumbs and served with cranberries?
They place themselves in all this unnecessary danger for what — a TV commercial?
How many motivations can you place beneath that?
And then they engineer something all of the armies of the free world combined couldn't?
I have to think the film's target audience is the five young men who were among the very few who attended a snowy Tuesday night preview.
The chaps draped their feet over the seats in front of them and occupied 20 minutes before the show by making gross noises and odors.
And they left midway through "Extreme Ops."
| 'Extreme Ops' |
Director: Christian Duguay
Stars: Devon Sawa, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Rupert Graves
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence/peril, language and some nudity
