Extreme Ops is basically pornography. Not that this substandard actioner contains any sex, save a butt-shot of a twerp snowboarder (Joe Absolom) and a chaste girl-on-girl kiss between a brittle Olympic skier (Bridgette Wilson) and an annoying punk-rocker (Jana Pallaske). No, Ops is like porn because it consists of an idiotic plot that's interrupted by impossible physical feats every five minutes. The big difference is that the action takes place on the side of a snow-covered mountain instead of a silicone-filled mound, and is shot on film, versus low-grain video. But the cast's flat, uninspired performances rival their XXX-rated counterparts in shoddiness, and the logy story will make one wish that cinemas had fast-forward buttons.

Ops' plot, what little there is, plays like the bastard child of Hot Dog … The Movie and Cliffhanger. The film follows a group of obnoxious, hard-partying daredevils into the mountains where they show off their alpine skills in a commercial being made by British director Ian (Rufus Sewell) and pompous American producer Jeffrey (Rupert Graves). However, when the athletes' rowdiness gets them booted from their posh Austrian resort, the cast and crew are forced to stay in a half-finished lodge atop a remote peak manned by Serbian workmen. Of course, they're not really workmen — they're the troops of a bloodthirsty Balkan general (Heinrich Schmieder) who's plotting to blow up the World Court so that they can't convict him of war crimes.

Once our brash, obnoxious, and thoroughly unlikeable protagonists discover the generals' plan, they're forced to ski or die. Unfortunately, they do not do the latter immediately. Instead, director Christian Duguay sets out to wow the audiences with their athletic prowess. But rather than use the long shots and extended takes seen in real-life snowboard and ski videos, Duguay opts for intrusive editing and papier-mâché sets to create some of the most fake-looking stunt work this side of Doctor Who. Couple that with a passel of European actors speaking horrible dialogue in atrocious faux-Yankee accents (at times, the film sounds like a dubbed kung-fu movie), and the only thing extreme about this operation is its abilty to irritate.