Take a handsome young ex-hockey star who could never do much other than skate, a prima-donna figure-skater who finds fault with every world-class partner thrown her way and laughs at said ex-hockey star, and an obligatory crazy-genius Soviet expatriate, send them all after Olympic glory, and you have The Cutting Edge.
Lead characters Doug Dorsey (D.B. Sweeney) and Kate Moseley (Moira Kelly) are star-crossed skaters: an eye injury at the Olympics ruined Doug's hockey career, while an ill-timed fall in the pairs figure skating finals leaves Kate's destiny unfulfilled. Coach Anton Pamchenko (Roy Dotrice) fishes Dorsey out of a construction site and transplants him to the Moseley estate in Greenwich. The fish-out-of-water concept was not as blatant as Pauly Shore's movies, but it was definitely there.
The stereotypical supporting cast did its job: Terry O'Quinn is the wealthy, doting father who is either obsessed with an Olympic medal for his daughter, or obsessed with his daughter who happens to want an Olympic medal (the movie never really makes clear which), while snobby fiancé Hale Forrest (Dwier Brown) is forgettable yet necessary to the plot, as is Walter Dorsey (Chris Benson), Doug's stereotypical nuts-and-bolts, slightly homophobic and very skeptical brother.
With Breakfast Club-like cost-efficiency, the film sticks to the dialogue between the few main characters, who are on screen for the large majority of the film. The questions are timeless: will Kate marry her snobby fiancé or will passion erupt from the love-hate relationship with her skating partner? Will they overcome the judging bias against ex-hockey players and win gold? Will Kate loosen up? Will Doug gain some culture and refinement? One could say that this film is predictable, but that is a good thing. Films like The Cutting Edge lose very little even if you've heard the story told a hundred times in a dozen ways. Suspense is not the goal here; romance is, and this film serves up more of it than almost every media-hyped "blockbuster" I've ever seen.
