THE CUTTING EDGE

"Toe pick!"

Why is The Cutting Edge still so enjoyable? The two decades since its initial release reveals the cheesy 80's music (in a movie made in the early 90s), the corny dialogue, and the big hair. But this ice skating movie is one of those films that you can mention to almost anyone, and they'll sheepishly admit, "I kind of love that movie."

I hadn't seen The Cutting Edge since way back in the day, so I had my reservations. The story is tried and true: Ice princess (Moira Kelly) meets a rough and tumble thug of a guy (D.B. Sweeney). They fight and fight and fight, and anyone can tell that it is really just foreplay to True Love.

The twist is that Kate Moseley (Kelly) really IS an ice princess—a star pairs' figure skater that can't find the right partner. At the last Olympics, disaster struck and she found herself without a medal, and without a skating partner. Hockey player Doug Dorsey (Sweeney) was at the same Olympics, a star college player who ended up getting smashed up against the glass one too many times. Having lost part of his peripheral vision, he'll never be a pro, and has been told a career on the ice is hopeless. I see a recipe for two stubborn ice-outcasts to be thrown together in a true Love Match!

The Cutting Edge follows the sports-movie formula to a T. There is the training montage (with plenty of humiliating face-plants on Doug's part as he figures out the trick of "Toe pick!"), there's class snobbery (Kate reads classics, which Doug doesn't read at all!), and there is the big competition at the end (Nationals, then the Olympics!). But then there are also the tried-and-true rom-com twists, with sexual tension building, a pesky fiance who sees exactly what is going on, and a denial of feelings until it is almost too late to act. Ahhhh... swoon.

The Cutting Edge still works nicely despite its occasional doses of cheese. The making-of featurette on the Blu-Ray extras show the amount of work the filmmakers and cast put into making the figure skating scenes realistic (Moira Kelly broke her leg at one point!). There is also nice chemistry between the stars that keeps the romantic angle engaging. In a modern interview included on the disc, Kelly and Sweeney still speak of each other affectionately (along with praising the devotion of the film's many fans).

That all adds up to a formula movie that works the formula well. No wonder people still dig The Cutting Edge: It's still shamelessly entertaining.