So far, every time the name David Mitchell has popped-up at the site it's been attached to some form of skiing or snowboarding film. That's not about to change now with the appearance of Shred. Since writing Ski School back in 1990 it seems you just can't keep Mitchell away from the slopes and for this outing he's brought along also-ran celebrity Tom Green and "Jackass" Dave England for the ride. They even managed to shoot a sequel back-to-back with this entitled Boarding School Dropouts which I'm sure will cross my path eventually - especially since I have a weird rule about trying to watch any (and every) sequel to flicks reviewed here.

When we first meet Mark (England) and Eddy (Jason Bothe) they're drunk in a bar watching a highlight reel tribute video dedicated to their past glories as snowboarding champions. It quickly serves to get us up to speed on our washed-up heroes and well as shows just how sad sack they've become since no one else in the bar really seems to care. In fact, their star has fallen so far that they're both working the ski lift at the resort town of Stubby Peaks.

Inspired by their dislike of rich mountain mogul Kingsley Brown (Tom Green), who they used to pick-on back in the day, they decide to form a snowboarding school to train the next generation of champions and beat Kingsley's boarders in an upcoming competition. They recruit the expected batch of (mild) misfits in the form of rebellious girl Tracy (Amber Borycki), African-American skateboarder Juice (Alain Chanoine), and childhood fan turned upcoming star Chris (Carlo Marks) and get up to the expected hijinks in between lazy attempts at training them while Kingsley looks on and tries to sabotage their every move.

Just from reading above, you can see that Shred isn't trying, at all, to break any new ground. This is just another extreme sports comedy from Mitchell where he layers in various jokes and unkempt behaviour between multiple scenes of stunt people tearing down the slopes while generic punk rock blares on the soundtrack. The script, written by Mitchell and his two sons Francis and John, just doesn't feel either juvenile or silly enough to match this premise (or two main characters) with most of the jokes coming across as too tame - however, we do get to enjoy the presence of Amber Leiterman whose stripper character spends her entire time on screen topless.

Basically hired here for name recognition, Green and England are actually the weakest links in the cast with Green, who's made a string of low-budget Canadian comedies since his star has fallen due to the atrocious Freddy Got Fingered and failed marriage to Drew Barrymore, never really gets a chance to do much here playing a weakly defined villain and, as much as I feel weird saying this, I'd rather of seen him go with the over-the-top persona he built up early in his career. It's easy to see that England is making his acting debut as he spends most of the flick grinning for no real reason with his worst moment being a scene where he's drunk and crying. This is a guy who has taken endless abuse as part of the "Jackass" gang and they never once smack him around. Thank goodness, then, that their co-stars pick up their slack as rapper-turned-actor Bothe is pretty fun as the dumber of our two heroes while Borycki (who seems to have made a career making appearances in various television shows as, I assume, the hot girl) is not only cute but pretty likeable as well.

It's easy to gauge the level of enjoyment you're going to get out of Shred. If you liked Mitchell's previous Ski School films this is pretty much more of the same, be it without as much T&A and immature humour, and isn't really a bad timewaster. I'm still a sucker for slope-based comedy and will profess my love for Hot Dog... The Movie to anyone willing to listen, so it's a no-brainer I was going to watch this, others might want to show a little bit more caution. (Chris Hartley, 9/19/10)

Directed By: David Mitchell.
Written By: David Mitchell, Francis Mitchell, John Mitchell.

Starring: Tom Green, Dave England, Jason Bothe, Carlo Marks.