November 28, 2002 | You could walk into any Blockbuster store in America, randomly select any made-for-video action flick that’s gathering dust on a back shelf – and chances are better than good that you’d find something far less blandly generic than Extreme Ops.
Don’t misunderstand: This piddling snow-and-stuntwork extravaganza isn’t merely a bad or stupid movie. I mean, yes, it is pretty bad, and plenty stupid: It’s the kind of no-brainer in which a plucky good gal knocks out a gun-wielding bad guy, then simply kicks away the baddie’s automatic weapon without thinking to arm herself. But even that kind of dim-bulb behavior would be forgivable, or at least endurable, if Extreme Ops were in any way distinctive, or at all above-average. Unfortunately, it’s so unremarkable, you start to forget it even while you’re watching it.
Rufus Sewell, nicely recovered from A Knight’s Tale, plays Ian, a TV commercial director who’s asked to film a dangerous stunt – skiers and snowboarders getting chased downhill by an avalanche – without resorting to CGI trickery. So he travels to the Austrian Alps with his pinchpenny producer (Rupert Graves) and an ace camera operator (Devon Sawa) to work with a none-too-bright Gold Medal skier (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) and two adrenaline-junkie snowboarders (Jana Pallaske, Joe Absolom).
Unfortunately, a member of the production company accidentally videotapes a fugitive Bosnian war criminal (Klaus Lowitsch) who’s supposed to be very seriously dead. Even more unfortunately, the fugitive has several heavily armed companions to help him maintain a low profile.
It takes director Christian Duguay approximately two-thirds of his 93-minute movie to establish his simplistic premise. From time to time during the extended set-up, he stops the “action” for some extreme-sports high jinks – kayaking over waterfalls, snowboarding off roofs, etc. – and extremely mild flirtations. (Pallaske, a saucy sprite with a widescreen smile, commits petty larceny by stealing every scene in which she appears.) And after the gunfire starts, Duguay gives us some more footage of the actors – or, more likely, their stunt doubles – schussing through the snow.
But nothing really helps: There’s nothing here that sets the pulse racing any faster than an hour of X-Games coverage on ESPN. Worse, when the skiers and snowboarders finally do get around to being chased by an avalanche, the filmmakers all too obviously resort to CGI trickery. Really, really cheesy CGI trickery.
Extreme Ops is so obviously designed for small-screen viewing that, instead of sporting the Paramount logo, it should begin with a flash of the FBI warning against video piracy.
