Kevin Harrison and Kemp Curley's "First Descent" takes its title from a snowboarder's initial trip down a pristine mountain peak. In this instance it is Mountain 7601, a craggy, awesomely steep peak in a spectacular, snow-covered mountain range near Valdez, Alaska, where five of the world's top snowboarders have come to spend two weeks expanding and testing their skills.
Norway's triple world champion, Terje Haakonsen, alone who turns out to be fully up to tackling the nearly vertical, crevasse-ridden 7601, which will put to the utmost test his skill at outrunning avalanches in breathtaking fashion. The other four are scarcely slouches. Two 18-year-olds, Shaun White of Carlsbad and Hannah Teter of Belmont, Vt., have never tackled Alaska's vast mountains, but Teter's confidence, rock-solid even when she admits to fear, and White's amazing jumping skills see them through. They are joined by Alaskan vets Shawn Farmer and Nick Perata. Despite an initial "reality check" fall that leaves him injured, the hearty, bearded 40-year-old Farmer ends with a dazzling display of snowboarding down jagged crevasses instead of snowy slopes.
Harrison and Curley, however, seem needlessly driven to hard-sell snowboarding, which the film surveys from its roots in skateboarding to its emergence as an Olympic sport, as if their jaw-dropping footage and the very likable and engaging snowboarders weren't more than enticing. As a result, what should have been a thrilling 90-minute sport adventure runs on for 20 more repetitive minutes. "First Descent" is exciting, but less would surely have been more.
--Kevin Thomas
"First Descent," rated PG-13 for brief strong language and a momentary drug reference. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. In general release.
Spontaneity in
'39 Pounds': Take 2
Dani Menkin's documentary "39 Pounds of Love" is a heart-tugger that, although highly inspirational, has a strongly orchestrated quality. The film's title refers to the weight of 34-year-old Israeli 3-D animator Ami Ankilewitz, afflicted with spinal muscular atrophy that has reduced his mobility to a single finger on his left hand. Despite the prognosis of a doctor in Laredo, Texas, where Ankilewitz was born to a Mexican mother and an Israeli businessman, that he would not live beyond the age of 6, he has survived and even flourished. He is sustained by a loving family, which eventually settled in Tel Aviv, and friends, plus his own will and creativity. And "39 Pounds" benefits from Ankilewitz's animated sequences, in which he whimsically expresses his longings and dreams.
