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I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Even if you love Robert Redford and you love skiing movies, I can't recommend you sit through Downhill Racer. My preference lies with the former category, and since he won a BAFTA Award for his performance, I was looking forward to seeing some high-quality acting. There was no redeeming quality about this movie, and for the life of me, I don't know why he was honored for it.Robert Redford plays a skier with hopes to join the American Olympic team. He's arrogant, rude, and a total cad with the women in his life. Gene Hackman plays the team's coach, and while it's fun to see him and Dabney Coleman so young, it's hardly worth seeing the film all the way through.The script feels nonexistent, the acting feels ad-libbed, the plot is thin, and there's more boredom evoked than suspense. Michael Ritchie's directing style feels extremely European, and I don't generally like that artsy, noncommittal, aloof style of film. Besides Havana, this just might be the worst Robert Redford movie ever made.DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie is not your friend. Most of it is filmed with a hand-held camera, and the skiing scenes seem to be filmed by the skier himself, and they will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

This film is great if you like skiing or like to watch skiers. But I can get the same from watching the Kirk Douglas World War II era film Heroes Of Telemark.I could make another comparison to Steve McQueen's racing film Le Mans which basically dispensed with a plot. The rudiments of a plot are present in Downhill Racer, but just barely.Downhill Racer casts Robert Redford as a would be American skiing champion who has a royal high opinion of himself and has to be brought down to earth by his coach Gene Hackman. Both want to bring some skiing gold to the USA and away from those snowy European countries that dominate.Of the two Hackman has a far more interesting character. Redford is strangely bland to me in this part. It makes Downhill Racer not one of his better films.But the skiing footage is fabulous.

If ANY film I have ever seen comes the closest to taking a sophisticated look at what most of the world would consider to be the spoiled-rotten, prima donna, mega-talented amateur athlete (I would add 'American', but I believe they would be like Redford's characterization even if they weren't), Michael Ritchie nails it. Way underrated. And it makes you wonder, especially with the poster pictured here, if the title's a double entendre (and not just slickly-marketed sex-advertising), not merely for various OTHER curves Redford's character wants to/succeeds in navigating, but also the possible crash-and-burn Chappellet may have, if he continues his wild, burn-the-candle-at-both-ends lifestyle while participating in quite a dangerous sport. Sonny Bono-jokes aside, this kind of thing happens.Simply marvelous work by Redford, Gene Hackman, Ritchie and cinematographer Brian Probyn. Essential purchase and rewatches for sports fans and the work of Redford, Hackman and Ritchie especially. Easily my favourite of Ritchie's work, next to, sentimentally, 'The Bad News Bears' (which is a whole different kettle of fish altogether).

There were some curious choices made when this movie was put together. There seems no reason why the film couldn't have been much more successful if it had wanted to be. It has some fine actors, the skiing is great and the plot is basically the same as "Top Gun".Robert Redford is one of the most charming and charismatic leading men of the modern era, but here he plays an unlikeable loner. In fact, almost everyone in the film is more likable than Redford, and you really wish someone would beat some sense into him. So we don't really care that much if he wins or loses.The film isn't helped much by the jazz score, which would work for some noir detective flick, but hardly for the high adrenaline sport of downhill racing. Pity.