OUT COLD

US, 2001, 98 minutes, Colour.
Jason London, Lee Majors, Caroline Dhavernas, Flex Alexander, A.J.Cook, David Denman, Derek Hamilton, Zach Galifiniakis, David Koech, Thomas Lennon, Lewis Arquette.
Directed by the Malloys (Brendan and Emmett).

Out Cold is one of those raucous American comedies that can be typed as take it or leave it. Probably many will prefer to leave it.

One of the advantages of the film is its scenic locations in Alaska, especially the mountains, the snow and the skiing.

The plot is familiar. An ordinary town, with its ordinary citizens – with more than a touch of the raucous – is in danger of being bought up by a developer who intends to modernise the town and transform it completely.

There is a background to the town, especially a pioneer who inaugurated a number of races and his statue, with his trousers significantly lowered as a key element, has pride of place in the town. Lee Majors plays the developer.

Among the friends in the town are Jason London and a young Zach Galifiniakis, buddies, drinkers, preoccupation with sex, of course, and various activities in stunts with skiing.

Jason London portrays the reliable type who is chosen by the developer to show him around and to preside over the changes. Rick is still pining over a short romance in Mexico and is shocked to find that the girl of his dreams is in fact the developer’s daughter – many complications, especially with her intended fiance, the paraplegic injured in a sports’ accident. There are other peripheral characters in the group as well as an obnoxious type, Thomas Lennon, who is ham-fisted at flirting and who is authoritarian in command.

As well as a romantic complications, there are the various devices that are used to upset the takeover of the town, the sabotaging of the town celebrations – and, of course, the town’s goodies winning out at the end over the scheming developer.