The Cutting Edge
When The Cutting Edge came to Showcase Cinemas in downtown Worcester as part of a sneak preview double feature in the spring of ’92 half of my 8th grade class got tickets for the gig (actually I think it was just the 4 of us dudes...but...whatever. I’m prone to intense exaggeration). Now see...a bunch of us were hockey players even though one of us (me) should have probably gone into figure skating as I could skate really well and play hockey not at all. Of course, we told everyone that we were only going to The Cutting Edge because we wanted to see the second movie....but I’m gonna go ahead and say we all really wanted The Cutting Edge...even if it prompted our gym teacher to ask “whaddya seein’ that for? Whaddya queeeeah???” Indeed sir. And I hope you are enjoying your special place in hell. Anyway: We open at the ’88 Olympics, where Da Bomb Sweeney (that’s what the D.B. stands for, right?) is a stone cold stud who’s playing on the US hockey team. We know he’s a stud because he wakes up next to some gal he has just balled and he can’t even remember her NAME! Stone cold? More like ICE COLD! Speaking of ice...across town disappeared West Wing star Moira Kelly is about to skate for the US figure skating team...but she’s having some trouble with her routine because she is....in the words of her coaches and her own father...a bitch. I mean...damn dudes! So DB goes to play hockey and the kid is pounding mad goals for his team but then he gets checked into the boards hard on a dirty hit. I mean...I think that’s what happens? You see...most of the hockey/figure skating scenes are filmed with this effect that isn’t quite slow motion. It’s like this weird strobe effect that makes it hard to tell exactly what’s going on. It looks like something you might see in a Marky Mark or Salt-N-Peppa video from 1990. Terrible choice, whatever it is. So DB’s face is crushed and Moira Kelly’s routine goes shithouse. DB goes to a doctor, who tells him that he has lost his peripheral vision and can never play hockey again. He’s incredulous. He’s like “can’t I just go to Mexico and have some Mexican shoot shark piss up my nose?” The answer: no. We jump ahead two years...where we find DB living back home in Minnesota...working at his family’s bar. Except he doesn’t want to work at all. He tells his brother he’s a hockey player and tending bar is beneath him. As one who tends bar, this scene really ruffled my feathers. Like...would it kill you to pull a couple of pints, ya prick? It’s 1990...people aren’t ordering egg white flips. His brother reminds him that every hockey team in the world has told DB to go piss up a rope. Meanwhile, we head over to Moira Kelly’s humungo mansion to check in with her. Girl has got her own indoor hockey rink and entire fleet of ponies. She’s fuck you rich. This ain’t no Tonya Harding changing the oil on her Ford F-150 pickup on her own. She has everything EXCEPT someone to skate with in the ’92 Olympics. Because she’s a bitch...remember? Somehow her new Russian coach knows of DB Sweeney and thinks he’d be the perfect partner for her...even though he’s blind and has never tried on a pair of figure skates. They get together and of course they hate each other and start busting chops something fierce. I’m thinking “damn, these are some serious snaps right here!” So I check the box and see that the movie was written by Tony Gilroy...who later wrote and directed the excellent George Clooney flick Michael Clayton as well as the latest Star Wars bullshit. Cutting Edge is his first writing credit and dude is trying to go full David Mamet...which is totally unnecessary for a movie of this stripe. Actually now that I think of it: The Cutting Edge would make a great stage play! You think they’d let me do it at the Footlight Club? Can we get some glice up in there? I digress! DB and Moira Kelly try to skate together but dude can’t stand upright on figure skates. He keeps eating shit and then she’ll skate over to him and shout “toe pick!” in his face. Mention this movie to anyone in 2018 and the first thing out of their mouth is likely to be “toe pick!” So then there’s a good 20 minute montage of them skating and working out together set to what could be a C+C Music Factory tune (I’m way too lazy to check). Somehow he quickly becomes an Olympian-level figure skater...even though he’s half blind. They never mention his eyesight again and it really friggin’ bothers me! They also start to like each other...which is understandable as they are pretty much the only two people in the movie. Couldn’t they have at least sprung for some extras or a sassy friend or something? DB gets invited to a New Year’s Eve party at the Moira Kelly compound where he finds out that she has a snow white preppy fiancee named Hale Forrest (oh come onnn). DB is bummed but then, at midnight, they, like, almost kiss! So now they hate each other even more because they LIKE each other, you dig? They skate their way through a shit ton more montages and win a spot on the ’92 Olympic team. Their coaches think they need to do some crazy move in their routine to take home the gold called Plump Chanko or some bullshit and they are like “sorry...way too dangerous, comrade.” The night before the big gig Moira Kelly decides she wants to get drunk for the first time so they slam down 50 shots of tequila and inexplicably dance to the Spin Doctors. They go back to the hotel and she wants to ball and DB is all “not like this” and she’s all “HRUMPH...god’s gift to reckless abandon turns out to be a prude in wolves clothing!’ (See...overwritten as shit, this movie!). She kicks him out but some other skater comes a-knockin’ on his door so he balls her instead. Fair play, mate. Moira Kelly is wicked pissed when she finds out. She decides to retire from being an Olympian after their big skate and spend the rest of her life brushing her ponies. Before they take the ice for the finale, DB tells her that he loves her and wants to try The Triple Lindy. She’s like “no...I hate you...but let's see how I feel after this 90 second routine.” They nail the Wang Dang Doodle and finish their routine by sucking face on the ice...and they are immediately disqualified because the Olympics strictly prohibit sucking face on the ice. Actually that’s a lie: the movie just ends with a freeze frame...so we have no idea what the fuck happens! Just a some schmaltzy Joe Cocker song written by Dianne Warren to play over the credits. Hasn’t this writer ever heard of a denouement? Jesus.