I saw this movie when it first came out and again about 20 or more years later on satellite. My impressions changed little. Basically, it's a heist movie with novice thieves involved. Cliff Potts is a down on his luck American about to give skiing in Europe up, Jean Claude is the skiing (I think an instructor, too) son of a big time power player in Europe. The father thinks little of his son's abilities. There's a young woman involved also (I believe she was Killy's current girlfriend in RL).
Killy's character gets the 3 together and proposes ripping off a ritzy ski area at the end of the holiday season when there's a lot of cash floating around. He convinces the others to join him and they do. Part of the plot is to get the cash to Killy who will ski some impossible terrain to stash the money, thus convincing authorities that the money must be elsewhere, especially when they decide not to run for it until it's quiet again, thus throwing more suspicion away from them.
---ok, this isn't a full spoiler, you'll see why when you read on, and I won't give away the ending, but it's more than the other two reviews ------
They succeed and congratulate themselves on their success,planning to wait out the investigation when all of a sudden, an insurance investigator shows up and begins sniffing around.
This is the real plot of the movie - will he find them out, how will they handle someone who may be as smart or smarter than they are.
The ending is not what you would expect in the least - unless you can make some very good, unsupportable with no hard facts assumptions, that are eventually made evident. This was a small saving grace for the low level acting.
It's obvious Killy has his moments on skis, which is what most of the viewers were waiting for. Cliff Potts shows up occasionally in other movies of this era, but was quickly forgotten. A nice ski movie, but not quite in the same league as 'Downhill Racer' with Redford and Hackman.
Killy's character gets the 3 together and proposes ripping off a ritzy ski area at the end of the holiday season when there's a lot of cash floating around. He convinces the others to join him and they do. Part of the plot is to get the cash to Killy who will ski some impossible terrain to stash the money, thus convincing authorities that the money must be elsewhere, especially when they decide not to run for it until it's quiet again, thus throwing more suspicion away from them.
---ok, this isn't a full spoiler, you'll see why when you read on, and I won't give away the ending, but it's more than the other two reviews ------
They succeed and congratulate themselves on their success,planning to wait out the investigation when all of a sudden, an insurance investigator shows up and begins sniffing around.
This is the real plot of the movie - will he find them out, how will they handle someone who may be as smart or smarter than they are.
The ending is not what you would expect in the least - unless you can make some very good, unsupportable with no hard facts assumptions, that are eventually made evident. This was a small saving grace for the low level acting.
It's obvious Killy has his moments on skis, which is what most of the viewers were waiting for. Cliff Potts shows up occasionally in other movies of this era, but was quickly forgotten. A nice ski movie, but not quite in the same league as 'Downhill Racer' with Redford and Hackman.
