Here are the relevant facts about “Out Cold”: It has a lot of awesome snowboarding sequences, it has some hot babes who take off their tops, the guys in it love to “party” (read: they drink a lot), and there are some cool modern-punk songs on the soundtrack.
If any of those facts make it sound less than appealing, then you’re well within your rights to just skip it. If the fact that it is only occasionally funny and very frequently stupid turns you off, no one will fault you for not seeing it.
But for heaven’s sake, if you’re just dying to see a movie about snowboarding, and you think a guy getting his member stuck in a hot tub jet is hysterically funny, then RUN, DON’T WALK, TO SEE “OUT COLD”!
If you’ve made a movie in which former TV star Lee Majors (“The Six Million Dollar Man,” “The Fall Guy”) is the funniest person present, then you have surely made a movie that sucks a lot.
Majors plays a guy named John Majors, a Colorado tycoon who plans to buy an Alaska ski resort called Bull Mountain. It is at Bull Mountain that our heroes reside and work, sort of running the place but sort of drinking a lot and playing practical jokes on each other, too. Majors isn’t going to put up with the crap they’re always pulling, though, so there’s going to be trouble.
Our main character is Rick (Jason London), and he has a soul patch on his bottom lip. He’s one of THOSE guys — you know, the guys with soul patches on their bottom lips. Also, he’s pining for this girl he met in Cancun who then disappeared. The pining is preventing him from seeing his true love right in front of him, the one-of-the-boys girl Jenny (A.J. Cook). And it turns out the lost love, Anna (Caroline Dhavernas), is Majors’ stepdaughter!
But put your brain back in your head and pay attention, Hector; there’s more plot to discuss. No, wait, there’s not. That’s pretty much it.
Rick’s circle of friends — in which he is the responsible, grown-up one — includes horny Luke (Zach Galifianakis) and his stupid brother Pigpen (Derek Hamilton), and probably some other people I’m forgetting.
Lee Majors actually is kind of funny. He’s given some amusing lines and a character that’s actually workable as a supporting character in a comedy. Everyone else is given one emotion to play — “horny” or “stupid” come to mind — and then told to overact until the cows come home.
David Koechner is also here, as a crazy middle-aged guy who says weird things. Remember how he wasn’t funny on “Saturday Night Live”? Yeah, he’s still not funny.
There are a lot of butt cracks in this movie. More than in, say, “Sense and Sensibility.”
First-time directors Brendan and Emmett Malloy (they’re brothers) and first-time writer Jon Zack are basically updating the 1984 ski-and-slacker lowbrow comedy “Hot Dog … The Movie.” One could argue that they should set their sights higher, but that would be missing the point. If they wanted to make a movie that will appeal to 16-year-old boys who like boobs and snowboarding, they’ve probably done it. If they wanted to make a good movie, well, that’s another matter.
D+ (; )
