Warren Miller Entertainment鈥檚 announces its throwback intentions in a self-consciously campy opening sequence: narrator (who seems, probably not as self-consciously, to be channeling ) stands outside a Main Street movie house in Anytown, USA, reminiscing about the Warren Miller films he watched as a kid. Retro posters for a few of them hang in the background, and when Moseley wanders in, moviegoers seem to be enjoying an old-school Miller film festival, watching Technicolor ski bunnies reverse leapfrogging and guys in neon gleefully launching spread eagles.
No Turning Back makes a play for some of the same easy charm that characterized those early films. It鈥檚 not jokey in the way of the old Warren Miller narration, but it鈥檚 definitely a film that worries less about being epic and more about being fun. A quote from the late ski-mountaineering legend Doug Coombs pops up 25 minutes in and might as well be the film鈥檚 tagline: 鈥淲hat鈥檚 so serious about skiing? It鈥檚 really not a serious sport at all.鈥
All the same, the movie starts out big, on an outing in Alaska鈥檚 Chugach Range with freeskiers and and heli-guide . Backstrom鈥檚 run down the Sphinx (55 degrees for 1,800 feet) is particularly breathtaking, her elegant turns captured by a sweeping distance shot in a film that elsewhere owes a lot of its slack-jaw factor to GoPro.
There鈥檚 plenty to gape at in No Turning Back: see 鈥檚 and 鈥檚 wing-assisted POV speedriding through the Alps, or the utterly impossible coastal peaks of Norway鈥檚 Lofoten Islands. But more than the topography or, say, and 鈥檚 lightning runs down those Lofoten peaks, No Turning Back鈥檚 heart lies in the duo鈥檚 odd-couple banter between runs. It鈥檚 in the encounter in a Hokkaido noodle shop between snowboarding giants and and an enthusiastic fan-turned-host, a chance meeting that obliterates the prestige gap between amateurs and pros. And it鈥檚 in the bloopers and bumper segments鈥攕hort, well-edited clips from 64 years of ski films鈥攖hat remind you why Warren Miller is the spiritual predecessor of America鈥檚 Funniest Home Videos, Jackass, and YouTube.
No Turning Back is a movie about fun people who dig playing outside in winter鈥攁nd oh, they often happen to be doing amazing stuff on planks. No wonder, then, that the movie鈥檚 most winning sequence isn鈥檛 necessarily its gnarliest: a clutch of competition and industry vets over 40 bombing down couloirs in Chamonix to the tune of the Grateful Dead鈥檚 鈥淭ouch of Grey.鈥 There are more dramatic and technically eye-popping moments in the film, but none where the skiers鈥 delight feels as genuine.
Of course, that segment itself echoes another graybeards-in-Chamonix segment from Warren Miller鈥檚 2003 film, . But it鈥檚 hard to begrudge the filmmakers their nostalgia when this film鈥檚 overriding theme (never mind the title) is that we鈥檙e always drawn back, winter after winter, in search of the same stoke.