Honestly, halfway through the film, I wished the theater would’ve halted the remainder of the film and just played trailers for upcoming movies.  It would’ve been more entertaining. 🙂🙂

Real talk, this film felt like the episode of Veep when JLD’s character meets the Prime Minister of Finland, and they have condescending banter to the point where the audience really didn’t know who to root for. In Downhill, though, the problem was the tone. The film climaxed too early, and then the falling action to conclusion dragged on. Was this supposed to be a comedy, and the comedic moments were so muted that I couldn’t gauge? I also picked up some derivative comedic tropes used in other projects, including Veep: playing up the tension and awkwardness in moments lost in translation, especially when different cultures converge. It didn’t work here because it felt unoriginal.

Loved the score! It often didn’t fit the mood, but it was enjoyable.

Cool cast. I’m an ‘up-and-down‘ Will Ferrell fan—I love Elf, but dislike the majority of his other comedic work. Downhill adds to the ‘dislike’ pile, but not due to his performance! Ferrell wasn’t bad in this, it was the screenplay. Good to see Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones) again! Also, I love Zach Woods, so seeing him on screen with JLD again was cool too!

This was a frustrating watch. 🥴🥴

To conclude, one positive—this was a great advertisement for the snow-capped mountains of Austria! Now I want to take a trip for some snowboarding fun! 🏂🏂 Kudos to the cinematographer and that fantastic camera equipment! It really captured the landscape beautifully. 🏔️🎿🚠 Shoot, they could’ve given me a smooth ass tangent highlighting the mountains only, like a National Geographic documentary, and it would’ve been lit! 🔥🔥🔥