Extreme OPS – Thrilling Action in Snowy Mountain

`Extreme OPS` offers 93 minutes of dynamic action by extreme sports enthusiasts, but come without an interesting plot and characters.

Commercial film director Ian (Rufus Sewell) assembles a group of extreme sports enthusiasts, including skateboard mania Silo (Joe Absolom), Kiti (Yana Palaske) and Ski gold medallist Cloy (Bridgette Wilson).

The crew travels to the Austrian Alps and begin to film a commercial. But they are soon entangled with a Serbian war criminal believed to be dead but in fact in his hideout. Accidentally catching him on film, they become locked in a life-or-death chase by the criminals who believe they are CIA agents.

Silo and Kiti enjoy skateboarding on a running train and snowboarding from the rooftop of a mountain villa. Ski gold medallist Cloy says, “You are not skiing when you sliding down an even snowy slope.” When asked whether she is scared, she replies, “This is fun of skiing.”

The showdown with terrorists in the latter part is just a spice. The movie is to show extreme sports action. The production team hired 178 stuntmen in France, Austria, Germany, the U.S., Britain and Norway to create dynamic scenes.

The rub is that similar action scenes are repeated. So by the latter part of the movie, the audience grows less impressed with the action and instead bored with the inane and unimaginative story. It’s one of the so-called killing time movies. Directed by Christian Duguay. Original Title: ‘Extreme OPS (Operations).` Release Date: December 19.

Hee-Kyung Kim susanna@donga.com