Idealistic travel agent Kevin Manley (Skeet Ulrich) quits his job and leaves the subtropical confines of his Southern Californian home when he's notified that he stands to gain an inheritance of 200 acres of Alaskan real estate from his late grandfather. There's a catch: He has to race in the Iditarod, the grueling 1,000 mile dog sled contest through the snowy Alaskan mountains. But there's another catch: A local attorney (Leslie Nielsen) knows the property is priceless and sets out to stop Manley from completing the race by having Carter, a crazed competitor (Rik Mayall), sabotage his dogs and equipment at every turn. What's worse, Bonnie (Natasha Henstridge), the lovely woman who teaches Kevin how to mush, finds out he's a Manley -- and their families are in a generations-old feud. Can Kevin and his team of mongrel mutts finish the race with so much going against them? ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Review
Made a year before the remarkably similarly-themed Snow Dogs -- a warm weather young man goes to Alaska to run a sled dog race to gain an inheritance -- Chilly Dogs relies on broad -- waaaay broad -- cartoon-like slapstick action to generate laughs. Some of it works (the sight gag of Kevin's assemblage of mutts), some of it is tiresome (Kevin's predilection for falling into open manholes) but most of it is so inane as to slide right by. Segments of the movie play like blackout sketches without coherent segues from one scene to the next, a sure sign the story isn't supporting the gags. Skeet Ulrich,who plays like a combination of Adam Sandler and Johnny Depp, just doesn't impart the effortlessness necessary for this sort of shtick. You need a Leslie Nielsen for that, but here Nielsen is cast against type as the villain, which hamstrings his comedy. Natasha Henstridge, however, can do no wrong and is as charming as ever. There are a couple of things that pre-teens will find racy and parents will find alarming -- two sequences involving opposite sexes sleeping together -- which obviates the most likely audience to laugh at the material -- little kids. Oddly enough, both Ulrich and Snow Dogs star Cuba Gooding Jr. co-starred in 1999's Chill Factor before assuming starring roles in competing sled dog movies. You think it was personal? ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Donald Paul Pemrick - Casting, Dean Fronk - Casting, Bob Spiers - Director, Lara Mazur - Editor, William Osborne - Executive Producer, Gary Howsam - Executive Producer, Colin Gibson - Composer (Music Score), Kenny Craddock - Composer (Music Score), Chris August - Production Designer, David Geddes - Cinematographer, Jamie Brown - Producer, Thomas Hedman - Producer, William Osborne - Screenwriter
