Frostbite (2005) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Elderly film master Ingmar Bergman has been making films in wintry climes for so many years, and yet he has never made a film about the tragedy of losing a loved one to extreme frostbite.

This, of course, is not it.

This is the usual "slobs versus snobs" film, remade for the 1000th time. As usual, the hero is a poor guy who gets a chance to cross over to the other side of the tracks, and maybe even get a rich girlfriend, until he finally realizes that he belongs with the sincere kind of down-home losers and stoners he grew up with. Eventually, as always happens in these films, the entire rivalry is to be settled by a competition in which the pathetic losers triumph over superior training and equipment by pulling off a last minute miracle. In this particular case, the competition is a downhill speed race on snowboards.

Although the slob-snob formula has provided the basis for some of the worst films ever made, Frostbite is near the bottom of that particular barrel. It is billed as a raunchy comedy, but it doesn't meet the genre standard for either nudity or laughs.

  • The only funny moments come when the screen is filled with the non-stop nonsense and insult chatter of Phil Morris, whose character was the only great black skateboarder before he burned out. You may remember Morris from Seinfeld, where he played the sleazy lawyer Jackie Chiles as a pluperfect comedic riff on Johnnie Cochran.

  • There is no nudity from any main characters, and the only flesh in sight is some brief topless exposure of pneumatic robo-hooters from background characters like "bar maid" and "hot tub girls."

The main actors not only fail to provide the nudity, but they fail to provide the best non-nude moments as well. Those were supplied by  footage of extreme snowboarding, which is either stock footage or stunt footage. The snowboarding was solid, and the editing was excellent, but this footage periodically interrupts the main flow of the film in cutaways which seem random and pointless except as scene transitions, and for durations which seem excessive.
 

DVD INFO

  • There are two versions: full screen and anamorphically enhanced widescreen (16x9)
  • Four deleted scenes
  • A brief "making of" featurette which includes more shots of the topless hot tub scene

 

NUDITY REPORT

There are three women seen topless in a hot top: Buffy Tyler, Suzanne Stokes, and an unidentified extra.

Nikol Nesbitt plays a barmaid who loses her shirt in a fight.

The Critics Vote ...

  • No major reviews online.

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, it's an E. It's not funny, has little nudity, and seems to be filled with pointless stock footage of snowboarding.

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