• Straight to Video
• Director: David Giancola
• Written by: Hasso Wuerslin
• Running Time: 90 minutes
• Language: English
• MPAA Rating: PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned
• Cast: Sean Astin, Bruce Campbell, Stacy Keach, Suzanne Turner, Sandra J. Abatiell, George Adair, Mark 'Woody' Keppel, Alison Lees-Taylor, Nancy Berry, Scott 'Bam Bam' Bigelow, Steve Berry, Lauren Bond, Patrick Burgeron, Steve Breakstone, Bridget Burnett, Sandra Cartner, Kent Cassella, Athene Cira, Liam Clough, Samuel J. Corruso, Timothy J. Cullen, Stephanie De Carreau, Jayson Argento, Erick J. Barbic, Rusty De Wees, Kiley Dixon, Jason Dolmetsch, Tom Donahue, Melissa Faignant, Jason Fearon, Sandra Gartner, Jill Gates, Adam Grimes, Robbie Hance, Peggy Hayes, Todd G. Hutchinson, John James, B.J. Chandler Jeromin, Tom Joyce, Richard Kincaid, Eileen Koch, David V. Lachance, Ray Lamoria, Melissa G. Lourie, Carol Lyons, Carol Malone, Kristi Marcus, Christopher Masor, John Mattingly, Dan Mazur, Nancy McGill, Steve Mellor, Laura A. Moore, Ron Nagle, Mike Outsky, Daniel J. Palmer, John Papais, Bruce Perkins, Chad Peters, Shannon C. Pitanielio, Rob Ranberg, Cathy Reeves, Susan Reiss, Richard Roughgarden, Kendall Salman, Leslie Savoy, David Schauwecker, Paul Schnabel, Debbie Scranton, Amelia Sharp, Craig Shelley, Gary A. Shunart, Michael Simms, John R. Sly, Susan Sneekan, Carl Svenson, Carol A. Tamburo, Jerry Tift, Robert Toms, Bruce Vail, Michael Vurieff, John M. Wallis, Seth Wise, Hasso Wuerslin, Howie Zack

“Icebreaker” is basically “Die Hard” set at a ski resort, with chunky, baby-faced dweeb Sean “Samwise” Astin, the very antithesis of Bruce Willis' molten machismo, standing in for, well, Bruce Willis. Oh, and replace Hans Rickman’s cool-as-a-cucumber Hans Gruber with a caged-hamster version of Lex Luthor, performance courtesy of loveably-sinister Bruce “Evil Dead” Campbell. Throw in some cheesy dialogue, some cheap looking effects, some nifty ski-stunt photography and you have, yessir, the makings of a kick ass b-actioner. Can I get a hells yeah!

From about the opening sequence, which features ‘Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D Minor’ blasting over the credits, you know that the filmmaker’s are making no bones about attempting to invoke the essence of the John McTiernan/Bruce Willis box office hit, if only to make fun of it. A hostage/prisoner scenario plays out aboard a small plane, which is treading lightly over some treetops, nearly smacking into a house. With gun drawn, a braggart terrorist commands a petrified pilot to fly low, out of the detection range of the nearby radars. Aboard the craft is bounty of weapons-grade plutonium, and the terrorist has a vested interest in making sure that it gets where it’s going. Sadly, the pilot has ideas of his own – and in a fashion keeping with events of 9/11 (one of many pre-nods to that terrible day, huh? Yeah, I said pre-nods), heroically elects to steer the plane into the ground, which of course, sends the evil terrorist’s plans out the window. He manages to retake control of the plane, but can’t stop it from crashing onto a snow-covered hillside. It’s damaged goods and he is no shape to hike the treasure chest of weapons-grade plutonium out of the woods on his own. Despite the nasty looking gash on his forehead, he manages to snake his way out to a nearby ski resort where he steals a car and heads to New York to tell his boss the bad news. This sets up what could possibly be the film’s coolest moment as said boss, Carl Greig (Bruce Campbell, sporting a Lex Luthor Q-tip) interrogates the flunky in a helicopter hovering high above a bustling New York City (the Twin Towers displayed ominously in the skyline), eventually sending him to meet his maker after he concedes the location of the downed plane.

Greig quickly rounds up his posse of surly drones and sets off to the location of the plane -- a sprawling mountain range located on the forested outskirts of a posh ski resort known as Killington Summit. The direness of the situation forces the terrorists to tag their wagons to another sect of pay-to-play merc types headed up by a heavily-made up Cruella De Vil-looking bad ass chick known as Sondra (Alison Lees-Taylor). They also make one more call: “We’re gonna have to bring in the Canadians,” Greig’s second in command tells him. Yes, Canadian mercenaries, my friends – brought in to lend armed support to Greig as he attempts to recover his lost cargo! I guess that’s cool! Actually, that’s uber-cool! By the time the film powers into its final lap and Canadian mercenaries are engaging American Special Forces operatives in a balls to the wall heavy artillery firefight through a stretch snow-covered forest, I was like, “You go, Canadian bad-ass mercs! There’s some gravy for ya, Billy Bob!” Uh… well, then I realized that they were actually the bad guys and quickly settled down.

Anyways, Greig’s plans for recovering the plutonium hit a snag thanks to a slacker Mountain Patrol officer, Matt (Sean Astin) who, along with a local forest ranger, Beck (Mark 'Woody' Keppel), accidentally stumbles upon the wreckage deep in the forest. Coincidentally, Greig’s goons are hot on the trail of the transponder, arriving mere seconds after Beck and Matt. It takes all of five minutes, and no amount of planning, for the two “officers” to bust up the salvage expedition. Ski poles and flying fists meeting fully automatic machine guns; which do you think will win? Of course, ski poles! Only in Hollywood, baby. When Greig can’t reach his men, he suddenly switches to plan B - and as for anyone who’s familiar with cruddy action movies already knows, Plan B generally involves taking hostages. For Greig, who is literally hours away from dying from some unnamed illness, it means taking over the entire ski resort. “The real enemy here is time,” Greig tells Sondra early in the film, and he means it. Skiers become hostages in a blink of an eye. And to show that he’s meaning what he’s talking about, Greig pumps a bullet into one unlucky bloke who found out the hard way that sometimes you should stay when you have to go.

Back at the crash site, Matt little by little begins to unravel the mystery of the machine-gun toting goons and the strange cargo that they were so interested in, but the seriousness of the situation doesn’t really compute until he calls the resort and finds himself chatting with the evil Q-tip mastermind. See, amongst the hostages is none other than Matt’s girlfriend Meg (Suzanne Turner), and Greig, smart cookie that he is, decides to use her as leverage. It seems that Matt was on his way to meet with Meg’s disapproving pop (Stacy Keach) in order to ask for her hand in marriage, that us until the terrorists arrived and screwed everything up for him. Poor, Matt. With very little help from the kill-happy F.B.I. agents (shades of “Die Hard”) on the other side of the ridge, Matt decides to go it alone – attempting a one-man recovery operation of his own, to rescue the hostages and, more importantly, save the love of his life… and maybe show her dad that he’s worth it. Sadly, the road to success is paved with dinner rolls, and after stopping for a bite, Matt is accidentally captured. For whatever reason, Greig seems to take a liking to Matt and sends him off to run yet another errand for him – namely delivering a videotape detailing his reasons for wanting to commit mass murder. Since everything has pretty much gone to hell anyway, Greig decides to blow the resort up while he still can. Makes sense. Back on the lamb, and with many of the Special Forces agents either killed or held back, thanks to the bad-ass Canucks I told you about earlier, Matt pulls up his bootstraps and decides to put his snowboarding skills to good use to try to outwit the terrorists long enough to stop Greig. Along to help out is the cowardly ranger Beck, who, earlier in the film, pleaded with Matt to let him leave. “I have kids,” he whimpered. Arriving late on the scene with a seemingly endless supply of Pez dispensers, he finds himself neck deep in the action going mano-o-mano with Sondra on a pair of speeding snowmobiles. Pez dispensers meeting fully automatic machine guns; which do you think will win? Pez dispensers! Oh yeah!

“Icebreaker” is the kind of film that begs for a bowl of popcorn and some wobbly pops. It’s a bizarro-world take on a genre long ago played out. The notion of a slightly overweight, apathetic, easily distracted dope staging an all-out offensive against a group of heavily trained militarist types, is beyond absurd, hence the joke. With his pre-pubescent looks and pudgy bod, the always-adorable Sean Astin is a bizarre choice for leading action man, something, I’m sure, the producer’s were betting on when they cast him. For sure, he’s a hoot, and we can’t help but root for him all the way. Whether he's staring down Meg’s pissed off dad, or nibbling on the muzzle of a machine gun, we are along for the ride, forever cheering him on and chuckling at his imperfectness. Stealing the show however is Bruce Campbell as a Lex Luthor-like terrorist with dreams of world domination. Campbell, as always, seems to be having a ball here. Even though he’s aiming for menacing, it never really works, mainly because Campbell is so damn likeable. By the end, I was practically rooting for him to blow the mountain up. Although there is next to no background given for his villainous character, we do know that Greig is suffering from some never fully-clarified disease (however, I suspect it’s cancer) but that's it. I would have loved for the writer's to delve deeper into what made him tick. 

Far from perfect, "Icebreaker" is a dopey fun mix of action and comedy, that succeeds in entertaining. Word of advice: the laughs come as fast and furious as the plot holes, so don’t think about it and just enjoy!