Movie fun, despite being Out Cold
by Michael Kraft, entertainment editor

    It’s getting cold in Texas, but the lack of snowfall precludes traditional winter activities: building snowmen, having snowball fights and snow skiing or boarding.

    The new film, Out Cold gives audiences an alternative activity to experience vicariously—kicking an evil real estate baron off a small, secluded ski mountain.

    Out Cold follows the plot devices of ski films Ski School and Ski Patrol, but instead of skiing, the young protagonists snowboard.

    The film is entertaining and very funny at the same time.

    The film revolves around a motley group of snowboarders on Bull Mountain, a small mountain in Alaska. Their lives are all about drinking, partying, snowboarding, chasing members of the opposite sex and occasionally working.

    After Papa Muntz (Lewis Arquette), the founder of the town who loves drinking, skiing and drinking while skiing, dies in a skiing accident, his selfish son Ted (Willie Garson) inherits the mountain and promptly tries to sell it.

    Enter real-estate mogul Jack Majors (Lee Majors). Majors has real plans for the mountain. He has the technology, he will rebuild it.

    On the mountain, life is one long party to Rick (Jason London), Luke (Zach Galifianakis), Anthony (Flex Alexander), Jenny (A.J. Cook), Lance (David Denman) and Pig Pen (Derek Hamilton).

    The group’s de facto leader and “King of the Mountain,” Rick is trying to heal the wounds of an old love that left him in Cancun.

    All the guys are trying to convince him to go after Jenny, who obviously has an interest in him, but he can’t get over Anna (Caroline Dhavernas), the girl who broke his heart.

    Soon, Majors comes to the mountain to check and see what he will change. He plans to change the name of the mountain, the uniforms, the equipment and (gasp!) the staff.

    Things are never cut and dry, however, and Majors brings his two daughters to the mountain with him. One of them, to the shock of Rick, is Anna.

    To the delight of everyone else though is Inga, Majors’ other daughter, played by Victoria Silvstedt.

    Everyone tries to get Inga, but Luke goes as far as throwing himself off a roof for her.

    Soon though, the changes to the mountain are too much for our vaunted heroes.

    Their favorite bar has been taken over; they have been fired; the mountain’s name has been changed, and Rick is Majors’ little golden boy.

    Rick revolts when he sees that the statue of Papa Muntz is being removed, and he gathers the other people to finally push Majors off the mountain once and for all.

    The film is really great. All the performances are quite good.

    Jason London is well cast as Rick, and he meshes well with co-star A.J. Cook. Zach Galifianakis, who has been appearing on his own Comedy Central special, is very funny. He is probably the funniest character in the film.

    Lee Majors, who has been working since ’63 in TV, most notably as The Six Million Dollar Man, plays the capitalistic land developer perfectly.

    The film should hold a special place in the hearts of snowboarding enthusiasts as the snowboarding sequences are incredible, but it is accessible enough for everyone to be enjoyable for all.