Review: This movie is a surprisingly effective drama about two close friends who move to Aspen to become ski instructors. T.J. has the looks and everything seems to come easy for him, but he struggles to find a deeper purpose in his life. His friend Dexter, trying to keep up with T.J.'s success, falls into drinking and drugs which causes a rift between them. There is a lot of great skiing footage and views of the surrounding mountains and valleys.
SPOILER: I have one huge nitpick with this movie. They should not have tied the extreme skiing portion of the movie to the Powder 8 competition that T.J. and Dexter want to win. The Powder 8 is a precision team event where two competitors ski back and forth in tandem to create perfect figure-eights on a wide and evenly sloped course, but the script always has them extreme skiing off-piste as their only training method. It's the equivalent of playing hockey to train for a figure skating event.
The plot hole is compounded by T.J. winning the competition by skiing off-course with his partner, essentially cheating as they impress the crowd with extreme skiing and jump tricks that have nothing to do with the actual skills the event is judged on. If this had been a slap-stick ski comedy, I might have bought this craziness but it clashes with the real and dramatic tone of the rest of the movie.
Quotes:
"Where are you guys from?"
"Detroit."
"Out here to see if you can be ski instructors, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Ah, about a hundred of you guys show up every year for that. The locals call that the freshman class. You read about movie stars in ski magazines and you want to move here."
"Yeah, I mean, that's all part of it, right?"
"Hope you guys are good."
"I think you're making a real mistake in not hiring, Dexter, I mean he'd make a great ski instructor."
"How would you know? You have only been a ski instructor for 15 minutes."
"Well, I just know. He's a great guy."
"Our clients pay $400 a day for private lessons. For that they expect ski instructors to be a certain type and look... like you. Part of the job is fulfilling a fantasy and you are the fantasy. I'm afraid your friend is not. You ski very well."
"So does he."
"Skiing is the easy part."
"You can come pick T.J. up in the morning. He can stay the night here."
"Wait, how about I stay the night and T.J. comes and picks ME up in the morning, huh?"
"How about not."
"He might have a concussion, guys?"
"You got a lot of luck, T.J."
"I know."
"This isn't your swing."
"Nobody was using it."
"I'm gonna go home to Detroit. Put my name on the list of Ford, maybe get your old job. I just don't want to go back empty-handed. I would like to ask you a favor... Well, I want to win the Powder 8 and I want you to be my partner. I want you to ski with me."
"I just came by to tell you I'm very sorry, T.J. I know you loved him a lot... Things happen, T.J., to everyone."
"It didn't happen to me."
"Yeah, it did."
"You know, I was afraid to come out here without him."
4 out of 5 Stars
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