Review: Out Cold

As if conceived during a Dukes of Hazzard shooting hiatus, Out Cold may be retro, but it’s sans daisy dukes. John Majors (Lee “Fall Guy” Majors channeling James Best’s Sheriff Rosco) turns Alaska’s Bull Mountain into an upscale resort, leaving the town’s freaky-deeky teen crowd to take back the night. Hoping that Majors will supply the mountain with “hot freakin’ chicks,” the boys go along with the plan. The local bar turns into an upscale joint and beer-on-the-slopes is frowned upon by the boss’s prissy slope guards. The Brady kids would have held a singing fundraiser in order to bring Majors down—the Out Cold gang, on the other hand, snowboard for their freedom. Not so much repulsive as it is flat out inappropriate, John Zach’s flimsy screenplay transforms a snowy mountainside into a banal stage for an endless string of ass jokes. Perhaps due to the low female population, the boys of Bull Mountain slap, mock-hump and threaten to ram asses as if they were going out of fashion. Zach’s free-floating gay anxiety isn’t as much a noble attempt at exposing the secret corners of male relationships as it is an awkward fetish on parade. Brenden and Emmett Malloy’s compositions are as uninspired as the film’s wall-to-wall use of pop songs and strange notion of comedic timing. A.J. Cook’s Jenny inexplicably waits for Flex Alexander’s Anthony to decide between her and the boss’s daughter—surely, this must count as the lamest romance of the year. In the end, it’s all about making Papa Muntz proud. Papa, the mountain’s deceased owner, is immortalized by a bronze statue whose buttocks are frequently rubbed for inspiration (baby got back, or so goes the Sir Mix-A-Lot song the film abuses to no end). The film seems to find its spirit through a series of extended practical joke sequences yet Out Cold has no beat. Neither kitschy ala The Revenge of the Nerds nor raunchy ala Porky’s, Out Cold is Animal House as directed by the lame guys at the party. A lisping bartender calls the town a “sausage factory” only to embrace his inner gay at the behest of the film’s queer-friendly characters; lest we forget he’s finally in touch with his true self, his hand limps for added effect. Ah, just like Mr. Roper wanted them.

Cast: Flex Alexander, A.J. Cook, Avid Denman, Caroline Dhavernas, Derek Hamilton, Zach Galifianakis, Willie Garson, David Koechner, Thomas Lennon, Jason London, Lee Majors Director: Brenden Malloy, Emmett Malloy Screenwriter: John Zach Distributor: Touchstone Pictures Running Time: 90 min Rating: PG-13 Year: 2001 Buy: Video, Soundtrack