Icebreaker

Die Hard at a ski resort.

Directed by David Giancola and starring Sean Astin, Bruce Campbell, and Stacy Keach, Icebreaker is a basic action movie in which ski patrolman Matt (Astin) is forced to save the patrons of the Mount Killington Ski Resort from the machinations of a dying terrorist, Carl Greig (Campbell), when a nuclear device crashes on the resort's property. Among the hostages are Matt's fiancé, Meg, and her father Bill (Keach), who disapproves of his daughter marrying some "ski bum." Matt has to rise to the occasion and stop the terrorists, save the hostages, and... grab a snack?

Released in 2000, the movie got a second life when it was re-released through RiffTrax in early 2016 with their typical mocking commentary. This was the second film they would distribute that was created by Vermont's own Edgewood Studios. In early January 2025, the RiffTrax film was released on the official MST3K Youtube channel for free and can be watched here.

Not to be confused with the completely unrelated James Bond novel Icebreaker.

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This Film provides examples of:

• Alone with the Psycho: The henchman at the start of the movie and the poor hapless pilot who he's forced to fly the plane.
• Artistic License – Engineering: When Sondra's goons cut all power and phone lines in the resort before taking it over, the ski patrol's walkie talkies, which would be battery powered and broadcasting on their own radio signal, inexplicably go out as well. We never see the goons do anything to prevent radio transmissions as they frequently use radio signals to communicate with each other so this should actually be the one form of communication the resort staff should still be able to use.
  • Despite the goons cutting the phone lines, later Matt is able to easily use a phone to call the restaurant where Grieg is holding everyone hostage.
• Artistic License – Medicine: Despite Grieg going through cancer treatment to the point of losing his hair, he's still got eyebrows, when chemotherapy would cause all his hair to fall out.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: The container holding the plutonium, despite supposedly being designed for safe transport of a highly dangerous radioactive material, is apparently leaking so much radiation that Grieg's men manage to track it down using a geiger counter at a rather far distance. That level of radiation would be quickly lethal at the close range that the characters in the movie spend to the container, especially when they open it up to check on the device.
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: Grieg is about to blow up Meg and Matt with a rocket launcher, having failed to get the nuclear device and just looking for revenge. He's about to pull the trigger... we see a massive explosion... and we see Bill standing behind Matt and Meg, having blown up Grieg with his own rocket launcher.
• Bald of Evil: Grieg, though with the explanation that he's dying of cancer and presumably this is a side effect.
• Captain Obvious: Played for laughs. Meg has been trapped inside a gondola with a bomb strapped to it for several minutes when Matt finally shows up, shouting "There's a bomb!" To which she shouts "NO SHIT!"
• Chekhov's Gun: Grieg gives Matt a video tape that he's supposed to pass along to the press to explain his motives. The viewer naturally expects to see the contents of the tape at some point. Instead, the tape winds up with Beck, who throws it at Sondra during a snow mobile chase, causing her to crash into explosives and die. We never see the tape again.
  • A more literal example: Bill gets the rocket launcher at the end of the film and blows up Grieg before he has a chance to kill Matt and Meg.
• Description Cut: When Meg gets mad at her father for disapproving of her engagement to Matt, she goes on a speech about Matt's good qualities, declaring him decent, that he "wouldn't hurt a fly," is honest and bright, stands his ground, kind and considerate, doesn't swear, and never lies down on the job. This is intercut with a sequence of visual gags countering each statement while Matt tries to fight, then flee some of the terrorist goons while swearing and getting knocked down.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Bill's derisive reference to Matt as "Ski Bum Matt" when Grieg is listening to their conversation leads to Grieg constantly calling him this for the rest of the film.
• Exact Eavesdropping: Meg and her father's discussion about Matt is easily overheard by Grieg, who learns about Matt working for the resort AND that he has a loved one he can use as a hostage.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: Played for laughs, Matt's boss gets his hands on a gun and by the end of the film is gleeful at the idea of getting to kill more terrorists, to the chagrin of his hapless staff.
• High-Altitude Interrogation: Our introduction to Grieg, who dangles his henchman out of a helicopter to make him confess his failures. The lethal kind.
• Hostage Situation: After Grieg learns that his men have lost the device and the detonator, he takes the patrons of the Summit restaurant hostage, driving most of the film's plot.
• Idiot Ball: Grieg's henchman that decides the best way to transport a nuclear device is to hold a gun on a pilot that isn't sympathetic to the cause... rather than just hiring a pilot that won't ask questions and maybe won't decide to kick off the movie by dive bombing the plane in a suicide maneuver.
  • Matt never even pretends to follow any of Grieg's instructions. This wouldn't be so bad if he didn't make choices like deciding to break into the restaurant to rescue Meg... and getting captured because he made a lot of noise grabbing a snack.
    • And really, after that, you'd have to wonder why Grieg trusts Matt with another task at that point after knowing Matt will just do whatever he wants, but nonetheless, he tries to make Matt deliver a tape of his motives to the media and lets him go.
• MacGuffin: The nuclear device that crashes at the start of the film is the goal of Grieg and the events of the film take place as he tries to retrieve it so he can go out in a blaze of glory.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Bill is not happy that Meg plans to marry the perpetually broke Matt. He somewhat comes around at the end of the film because Matt saves Meg's life.
• Plucky Comic Relief: This role is mostly filled by the hapless park ranger Beck, who's not the sharpest tool in the shed. In spite of that, he's surprisingly competent at taking out terrorists.
• Police Are Useless: Law enforcement in the film is largely incapable of putting a dent in Grieg's plans. Langley is built up as Grieg's nemesis... only to be easily dispatched when his helicopter is blown up because his crack sniper is unable to land a shot on Grieg while he's holding Meg in front of him.
  • Meanwhile, Beck, a park ranger and thus in a position of enforcement, is shown to be a huge bumbler that somehow manages to succeed at holding off Grieg's men through sheer dumb luck. He later brags to a news crew about his supposed expertise, getting so into a discussion of his "combat skills" that he attacks a reporter and knocks her unconscious during the broadcast.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Besides its utter cheapness, Icebreaker is distinguished from its "Die Hard" on an X classmates by being so shameless as to use the same piece of public domain music - Beethoven's 9th - as the original.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": One of the minions is always smiling and laughing while chasing Matt around, culminating in his epic gleeful burst of maniacal laughter as he tries to run down Meg and Matt with a giant snowplow near the end of the film.
• Senseless Sacrifice: The movie opens as a kidnapped pilot, forced by one of Grieg's henchman to ferry the nuclear device to its intended destination, chooses to instead crash the plane into the wilderness and save other people from the henchman and the device. Unfortunately, the device AND the henchman survive and the device being close to a populated ski resort leads to many more deaths as Grieg has no qualms murdering his way back to it.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Plenty! Vehicles, ski lifts, the bases of ski lifts, and don't forget how many people are carrying rocket launchers.
• Terminally-Ill Criminal: Greig is a terrorist mastermind dying of cancer who intends to "go out with a bang on his final birthday" by taking an entire ski resort hostage, murdering the staff and guards, and hijacking a nuke to make sure the world remembers his legacy.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: Grieg never states any kind of allegiance. We only assume he's as violent as he is because he gets off on it, but ironically, even though he provides Matt with a video tape to give to the press that will explain his motives, we never actually learn those motives.
• Uptown Girl: Meg is from a far higher social class than "Ski Bum Matt", which doesn't bother her in their relationship but is a direct factor in why they're trying to navigate a Parental Marriage Veto from her father.
• Western Terrorists: All of the terrorists we see in the film are Americans, save for Sondra who is introduced as a Canadian terrorist.
• You Have Failed Me: Grieg kills the henchman who lost his bomb, telling him straight up to "leave like a man." When the only way to "leave" is to get thrown out of a helicopter.