Extreme Ops (2002)
Directed by Christian Duguay
Written by Michael Zaidan
Starring Devon Sawa, Bridget Wilson-Sampras, Rupert Graves, Rufus Sewell
Release Date November 27th, 2002
Published November 27th, 2002
I am not a big fan of extreme sports. Any sport that wasn't begun before 1960 is not a sport. But I must admit that when it's done well it can be exciting to watch, but still not a sport. The new movie Extreme Ops is about a group of extreme sports enthusiasts who accidentally stumble upon a group of Serbian terrorists.
That would never happen in football.
While on location shooting a commercial for a digital video camera, a group of extreme sportsters head to Austria to film the most dangerous stunt they could think of, skiing and snowboarding ahead of a hard-charging avalanche. Included in this ragtag bunch is the director Ian (Rufus Sewell) his partner and money man Jeffrey (Rupert Graves), the cameraman Will (Devon Sawa), a punk skateboarder named Kittie (Jana Pallaskie) another punk skateboarder named Silo (Joe Absolem) and Chloe (Bridget Wilson Sampras, smoking hot) a gold medal winning downhill skier.
Ian does not want Chloe to be a part of the shoot but Jeffrey has hired her as the star of the commercial. The stunt is far more difficult than the downhill skiing Chloe is used and at first she can't keep up. If only that were the biggest problem. Instead they accidentally stumbled upon the mountain hideout of a Serbian terrorist who was believed to be dead. So obviously since the crew has seen him and Will actually gets a picture of him, they must be killed before they can reveal his location.
Yes the story is as ridiculous as it sounds but director Christian Duguay knows it's ridiculous and doesn't waste to much time setting up the terrorist plot, preferring to focus on the awesome skiing and snowboarding stunts. The difference between the extreme sports antics in Extreme Ops and those of other big dumb action movies like XXX is that Ops knows how ridiculous they are and embraces them. The charismatic cast perform the stunts with a wink to the audience that let's us in on the joke of the story and allows to relax and have fun with it.
Devon Sawa is one of my favorite young actors and his natural charisma is all over his character here. Sawa plays Will as a guy you would love to hang out with, get drunk or stoned and go do something incredibly dangerous and stupid with. And Bridget Wilson-Sampras who in the past has been accused of being too pretty for the plain characters she is supposed to be playing, here plays a character who is supposed to be hot. She's an actress in a TV commercial and an athlete. Newcomer Jana Pallaskie is stuck in the thankless Clea Duvall role. The “beautiful on the inside grumpy Goth chick” that has become a cliché. Pallaskie does what she can with the role and manages to come off as likable and funny.
Extreme Ops is a B movie that knows it's a B movie. Director Christian Duguay never has any pretense of trying to create art or memorable film. He is making a movie that is a series of stunts and excellent camerawork and both are spectacular. There are moments where things are obviously too dangerous and the filmmakers were forced to use bad CGI effects, but, for the most part, these are awesome stuntmen and women pulling off real stunts.
Real cool stunts.
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