"Chill Factor" is a B movie tricked out with first-class production values and an Oscar-winning actor. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s first outing as an action star will likely attract a few curious souls during Warner Bros.' domestic release. But the Morgan Creek production will probably play better overseas and in ancillary markets where such preposterous cliffhanging will be embraced as corny fun.
This chase movie -- with the chase occupying roughly 85% of the footage -- borrows unashamedly from many better movies, ranging from "Speed" to "The Wages of Fear". Gooding is paired with Skeet Ulrich as a couple of Joes plucked from small-town obscurity to save the world, or at least a large corner of the United States, from apocalyptic ruin.
The MacGuffin in this instance is a highly volatile doomsday chemical formula secretly developed by the U.S. government for germ warfare. This chemical goo will activate at the temperature of 50 degrees.
Gooding happens to be driving a rickety though refrigerated Ice Cream truck; Ulrich gets handed the chemical goo by David Paymer's dying scientist with instructions to drive it to an army base 90 miles away; Ulrich hijacks Gooding's truck with Gooding along for the ride; and a team of Really Bad Guys, headed by disgruntled ex-Army officer Peter Firth, is hot on the two men's trail.
Making certain that one damn thing will lead to another, writers Drew Gitlin and Mike Cheda mix in relentlessly stupid cops, plus an army and a phalanx of news media that somehow fail to notice a day's worth of exploding trucks, gunfire and monumental traffic accidents over that 90-mile route.
Gooding and Ulrich acquit themselves reasonably well as the unlikely and reluctant partners. Their good-natured bantering certainly makes the film as watchable as it is. But one can't help wondering if "Chill Factor" was really the best script to come their way when they agreed to do the movie.
As the vehicles race through a landscape that the story insists is Montana but is clearly the Southwest, tyro director Hugh Johnson keeps the movie sharply focused on action. The cinematography, along with all the stunts, technical effects and editing, are outstanding.
But the film suffers from too much calculation. One feels the filmmakers strain to push the stunts and twist the plot to cram more and more "thrills" into a tissue-thin story line.
The effect is less thrilling than wearying. Action overload can doom the most mindless of entertainments. "Chill Factor" comes perilously close to melting down itself before the chemical substance does.
CHILL FACTOR
Warner Bros.
James G. Robinson presents
a Morgan Creek Production
Producer: James G. Robinson
Director: Hugh Johnson
Writers: Drew Gitlin, Mike Cheda
Executive producers: Jonathan A. Zimbert, Bill Bannerman
Director of photography: David Gribble
Production designer: Jeremy Conway
Music: Hans Zimmer, John Powell
Costume designer: Deborah Everton
Editor: Pamela Power
Color/stereo
Cast:
Arlo: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Tim Mason: Skeet Ulrich
Captain Andrew Brynner: Peter Firth
Dr. Richard Long: David Paymer
Vaughn: Hudson Leick
Col. Leo Vitelli: Daniel Hugh Kelly
Telstar: Kevin J. O'Connor
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
This chase movie -- with the chase occupying roughly 85% of the footage -- borrows unashamedly from many better movies, ranging from "Speed" to "The Wages of Fear". Gooding is paired with Skeet Ulrich as a couple of Joes plucked from small-town obscurity to save the world, or at least a large corner of the United States, from apocalyptic ruin.
The MacGuffin in this instance is a highly volatile doomsday chemical formula secretly developed by the U.S. government for germ warfare. This chemical goo will activate at the temperature of 50 degrees.
Gooding happens to be driving a rickety though refrigerated Ice Cream truck; Ulrich gets handed the chemical goo by David Paymer's dying scientist with instructions to drive it to an army base 90 miles away; Ulrich hijacks Gooding's truck with Gooding along for the ride; and a team of Really Bad Guys, headed by disgruntled ex-Army officer Peter Firth, is hot on the two men's trail.
Making certain that one damn thing will lead to another, writers Drew Gitlin and Mike Cheda mix in relentlessly stupid cops, plus an army and a phalanx of news media that somehow fail to notice a day's worth of exploding trucks, gunfire and monumental traffic accidents over that 90-mile route.
Gooding and Ulrich acquit themselves reasonably well as the unlikely and reluctant partners. Their good-natured bantering certainly makes the film as watchable as it is. But one can't help wondering if "Chill Factor" was really the best script to come their way when they agreed to do the movie.
As the vehicles race through a landscape that the story insists is Montana but is clearly the Southwest, tyro director Hugh Johnson keeps the movie sharply focused on action. The cinematography, along with all the stunts, technical effects and editing, are outstanding.
But the film suffers from too much calculation. One feels the filmmakers strain to push the stunts and twist the plot to cram more and more "thrills" into a tissue-thin story line.
The effect is less thrilling than wearying. Action overload can doom the most mindless of entertainments. "Chill Factor" comes perilously close to melting down itself before the chemical substance does.
CHILL FACTOR
Warner Bros.
James G. Robinson presents
a Morgan Creek Production
Producer: James G. Robinson
Director: Hugh Johnson
Writers: Drew Gitlin, Mike Cheda
Executive producers: Jonathan A. Zimbert, Bill Bannerman
Director of photography: David Gribble
Production designer: Jeremy Conway
Music: Hans Zimmer, John Powell
Costume designer: Deborah Everton
Editor: Pamela Power
Color/stereo
Cast:
Arlo: Cuba Gooding Jr.
Tim Mason: Skeet Ulrich
Captain Andrew Brynner: Peter Firth
Dr. Richard Long: David Paymer
Vaughn: Hudson Leick
Col. Leo Vitelli: Daniel Hugh Kelly
Telstar: Kevin J. O'Connor
Running time -- 93 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 8/27/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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