Chill Factor

Plot synopsis:
Ten years after a covert military experiment on a remote Pacific island went wrong and killed eighteen servicemen and his assistant, Dr. Richard Long (David Paymer) is still trying to forget the havoc and death that his experiment caused.
Living in the small town of Jerome, Montana, Long still conducts scientific experiments at the local base, but far more enjoys his time fly-fishing with Tim Mason (Skeet Ulrich), who works in the local greasy spoon and has a checkered past.
Long's life changes, and then ends, when he's visited by Colonel Andrew Brynner (Peter Firth), a former military officer who took the blame and served ten years in Leavenworth for Long's experiment.
Now a free man with a score to settle with the government, Brynner has assembled a team of high-tech terrorists, including an icy woman named Vaughn (Hudson Leick), and plans to steal and then sell "Elvis"—Long's highly volatile, blue crystal substance—to the highest international bidder, thus having his revenge against the government for covering up its existence, and making him a scapegoat for their handling of the weapon.
Unfortunately for Brynner, Long has already delivered "Elvis" to Tim, along with the directions that the substance must remain below fifty degrees, or it will detonate, and kill everyone within several hundred miles of it.
After Mason and Arlo (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a wisecracking ice cream delivery man, have a run-in with Brynner, they set off en route for Fort Magruder, some ninety miles away. The two don't get along with each other—Arlo only agrees to transport the substance in his ice cream truck because Mason held a gun on him—but they find a common bond in trying to avoid Brynner and his team.
With the help of Colonel Leo Vitelli (Daniel Hugh Kelly), Arlo and Mason try to survive Brynner's attacks, avoid the local deputy, Pappas (Jim Grimshaw), who's also hot on their trail, and keep "Elvis" below fifty degrees.
Arlo and Mason finally reach the base, but get ambushed by Brynner and his team who plan on detonating the device in an abandoned weapons test facility. Brynner does not want to leave witnesses,and decides to kill both of them. However, the military arrives and rescues Arlo and Mason before the device explodes, killing Brynner and his men. Colonel Vitelli arrives and congratulates them on a job well done, but Arlo and Mason threaten to expose the U.S. government for using unstable nuclear weapons for the past decade. Vitelli decides to pay them both to keep them silent, but also threatens to have them killed if they say a word about what had happened. All three of them leave the area in a helicopter.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
I've always looked upon Cuba Gooding Jnr as a semi decent actor but if this is the kind of film he is going to be starring in, then I can see him descending the same way as Charlie Sheen.You can see from the outset that the makers tried to make one of those high octane action thrillers, which are ten-a-penny these days.
But when you've got a budget that would struggle to finance an episode of quantum leap, then maybe making a film of this kind wasn't such a good idea.They make use of computer graphics in a lot of the action scenes which, to be honest, doesn't look the worst I have ever seen, but still prompts you to snicker at how bad it is.
The most ridiculous of which occurs at the end of the movie, when a chemical weapon which we have been told has the power to blow up basically a quarter of America, detonates in a tunnel.At this point we are subjected to rotten computer graphics which are so bad that I instantly had flashbacks of Dean Stockwell and the film-making atrocity that was the Langoliers.But the story is complete nonsense, so even with a budget the size of Lord of the Rings, there would be no way of making the whole thing believable anyway.
So you can perhaps see where the producer was coming from i.e. lets make a cheap action thriller and we'll plaster Cuba Gooding's face over the front cover and we'll maybe make some money.It would've have been better if Eric Roberts had been given the leading role..
He shots the scientist but he flees with the weapon to the convenience store where the clerk Tim Mason (Skeet Ulrich) and an ice-cream trucker driver Arlo(Cuba Gooding Jr.) are negotiating.
"Chill Factor" is not a bad film; indeed it is slightly above average for this type of action movie.
Cuba & Skeet deliver some good comedy lines to take a bit of the edge off the intensity of this film.
It was action-packed, fun to watch and a great way to spend a Saturday night at home, either by yourself or others.Out of ten, I give this film a 7.
This is one of those movies, an action flick with tongue firmly placed in cheek that is very much in the vein of Con Air with its sense of humour.The plot is basically one part road movie, one part 'Speed' and two parts 'The Rock,' as two blue-collar losers in the shape of Skeet Ulrich and Cuba Gooding Jr find themselves in possession of a top secret military chemical weapon that will detonate and kill millions of people if its temperature exceeds 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
They are just a pair of ordinary guys thrust into a situation beyond their control rather than muscle-clad, indestructible body-builders or Kung Fu experts and they only really survive unscathed by bumbling through the fight scenes.You can tell the cast are having a great time and in all honesty, Cuba Gooding Jr seems to be enjoying himself so much it's a surprise he doesn't grin like a cheshire cat throughout the whole movie.
If you like action with wit, this is a good movie to rent..
Despite a respectable budget, the movie looks quite cheap, sometimes embarrassingly so, like when you see a guide cable hooked to the boat, or when you see that a major highway up a mountain is A DIRT ROAD (?!) The protagonists are annoying little jerks, and you feel sorry for Gooding for playing a foul-mouthed stereotyped hustler.
There's only one reason to watch "Chill Factor", and that's Peter Firth (Colonel Andrew Brynner) and his bunch of totally useless elite commandos / terrorists.The plot is awful, the dialogue is terrible, and it makes you wince to think that Cuba Gooding Jnr once won an Oscar.
Maybe this film might not have the greatest plot I know, but it sure as heck keeps you entertained throughout the whole movie.
Cuba Gooding Jr,an ice cream delivery driver,and Skeet Ulrich,an employee at a diner, are transporting a secret chemical weapon,named Elvis,that if exceeding the temperature of 50 degrees will detonate killing 3 million Americans and annihilating everything for miles around.
In spite of several clichés and improbable scenes, the movie was not boring or annoying to watch - thanks to Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Arlo, Peter Firth as Andrew Brynner, and David Paymer as Dr. Richard Long, above all (Skeet Ulrich as Tim Mason was uninviting to me).
Fortunately or unfortunately, film-makers like Tarantino, Schumacher, The Coen Brothers, Scott etc have no monopoly on making action movies..
Chill Factor's purpose is nothing but a funny, quirky, feel-good action film.
The first twenty-five minutes were looking sort of grim, but the pairing of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich worked in the film's favor because the script made Cuba's character smart and funny.
If I saw Chill Factor as a kid, I think I would've found my new favorite film.When compared to Cuba Gooding Jr.'s previous action film, Judgment Night, this is greatly inferior.
This 3rd rate action adventure guy flick will probably set Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s career back about 10 years.
This film is basically a variation on `Speed' where instead of keeping the bus above 50 mph, they had to keep the unstable chemical warfare bomb below 50 degrees.Two regular guys (actually two screw ups) must save the world from a group of rogue military mercenaries who are trying to steal a potent chemical weapon and sell it on the open market.
The dialogue between Arlo (Gooding) and Tim (Skeet Ulrich) is mindless tripe that attempts to be funny but merely makes the characters seem pathetic.
The movie that marked the end of the careers of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulirch..
Skeet Ulrich and Cuba Gooding Jr. once started out their careers as promising new actors, Gooding Jr. had even already won an Oscar at the time of this movie.
The movie tries to be like a buddy flick, in which two totally different mismatched persons just by chance end up with each other, running from a couple of bad guys who want to have a new deadly chemical weapon that detonates when it reaches temperatures over 50 degrees.
The movie does have some big names in it, next to Ulrich and Gooding Jr., such as David Paymer and Peter Firth.A movie that is as bad as its concept.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/.
The only condition is that the weapon must be kept below 50 degrees Fahrenheit or else it will go off and kill everything for hundreds of miles.When I sat to watch this it was really because it had been a good few weeks since I had seen a really bad film  from the plot summary I had assumed that this would be one, even with my low expectations.
The director is owed a lot of credit, despite the clichés he really keeps the pace up and makes this better than it should have been.The acting is not good but is acceptable and is all that is needed for this sort of film.
Firth plays a traditional bad guy and Paymer seems to have taken his misguided scientist straight from the cliché text book.Overall this is a poor film.
If you went to this movie after watching the trailer and didn't expect it to be a great diversion rather than a serious action-thriller, you weren't paying very close attention when Skeet Ulrich's character brandishes a gun and for the second time says "I need your truck," and Cuba Gooding, Jr., responds, "How far you got to go?" From that point on in the trailer, you SHOULD be clued in.
Chill Factor has little originality, with sloppy direction, and a straight to cable feel.The only thing that kept me watching was counting how many times the main characters uttered the words 'Oh S***' - if you ever watch it, you'll be surprised by how often the writer relies on these words to convey 'fear/tension/disbelief'.
As long as your gripping your armchairs during the suspense....laughing at the actors 'well timed catch phrases'  and waiting for the final battle against good and evil it does not matter that you have seen the same typical movie.
This movie could have been better if it weren't such a stereotypical, predictable rip-off of Speed and other such genre movies.I wish original and good writing would make a return, instead of brain-dead plots and trite dialogue that rely on effects and actors' energy to create "eye candy"..
It's like were put in a middle of an action movie with bad guys chasing good guys and thats it.
What a waste of time for the talented Cuba Gooding Jr. The talented cast entices the viewer to sit through the entire movie, waiting for it to get better.
Cuba Gooding Jr. continues to act his "show me the money" routine, which really is getting tiresome, and Skeet Ulrich acts as if he doesn't want to be in the film.There are a couple of stunt scenes which are notable, but all other prodution areas of this film are just plain awful.This action thriller is definately missing the action and the thrills..
Cuba Gooding Jr. is getting on my nerves!!!!!I think he was good in As Good As It Gets and maybe in Jerry Maguire....but after A Murder Of Crows, Instinct and Chill Factor, I guess he's ready to make straight to video movies(A Murder of Crows didn't play at the theatre).
Skeet Ulrich is not very amazing....not as bad as Cuba Gooding Jr.!
This movie is a lot similar to "broken arrow" from a few years ago.It was also like watching any buddy action movie (ie Leathal Weapon movie) It will be ok for a rental?perhaps there is some deleted parts that maybe would overall better .
The only thing in Chill Factor was the a/c in the movie theater!!You have seen better from the films stars cuba gooding was awesome in "What dreams may come" and Ullrich was awesome in "Scream "and "Phantoms"!!!If you must go leave your mind at the door and be ready for a mind numbing action movie!!.
After watching this movie, I have to say Cuba Gooding Jr. has got to find a new agent.
A movie has got to be pretty bad if all they can put in the trailer as the tagline a protesting Cuba deadpans(where Skeet Ulrich points a gun to Cuba) "How far do you wanna go?"   A good action/comedy usually makes you lose all your senses as you go through a wild roller coaster ride.
This film could have been edited down to a fairly impressive 28 minute short...But not to be completely negative, Cuba Gooding Jr. was very entertaining and Cinesite's sequence in the beginning is really impressive for the anemic budget I'm sure was allotted for visual effects.
Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. sometimes overplays his character (a la "show me the money" attitude) and Skeet Ulrich seems timid at times, but the two actors pull it off as a team.
Whereas other buddy films like "Lethal Weapon", and "Thelma and Louise" prospered with the idea, the chemistry between Cuba and Skeet didn't quite click for me.
Chill Factor was definitely an enjoyable movie for an action film fan.
Of course, they need it for the movie buddy duo road trip genre.The setup is silly just to bring about the unlikely scenario of two bickering guys in an ice cream truck carrying a super weapon being chased by militaristic bad guys.
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich are all jokes in this movie as they transport an explosive in an ice cream truck.
In `Chill Factor,' Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Skeet Ulrich star as two average guys who find themselves in a stolen ice cream truck transporting a volatile chemical weapon capable of destroying all animal life within a 500-mile diameter if the material (shades of `Speed') rises above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
Hot on their tail come the men (and one woman) who will stop at nothing to retrieve the explosive as well as a dimwitted sheriff who mistakenly believes the two young gentlemen are responsible for the death of the scientist who both invented the substance and guards it from falling into enemy hands.`Chill Factor' is a decent enough action film, short on credibility and originality but high on energy and visual attractiveness.
On the positive side, director Hugh Johnson knows how to keep the action moving forward at a brisk pace and Gooding and Ulrich, despite the fact that the screenplay offers neither actor much of a chance to flex his thespian muscles, at least make for a likeable movie-buddy team.
Still, one wonders whatever happened to Gooding, Jr.'s career which seemed so promising just a few years back after he won the Academy Award for his work in `Jerry Maguire.'  Likeable as he is in `Chill Factor,' one would like to see this performer applying his talents to more challenging and worthy fare than he has of late been doing..
The plot, such as it is, involves a deadly substance, developed by the Paymer character, that Ulrich and Gooding, as two ordinary guys, are trying to keep out of the hands of the bad guys, a highly trained paramilitary group.
Some of the action parts are nice, but you don't really care about the characters and through the movie you have the feeling nothing bad is going to happen to our main characters (like in James Bond).
Overall, it is funny maybe entertaining to people who did not see many action movies and get excited when a bomb goes off  but pointless and predictable.Too bad, The previews looked good..
It isn't until roughly 20 minutes that Cuba Gooding Jr. gets introduced and the movie actually starts.Gooding Jr steals his employer's ice cream truck just to be spiteful and hopes to rip people off along the way.
'Chill Factor' is not a terrible movie, thanks in large part to Cuba Gooding Jr. As a part comedy movie, everything funny comes from him.
That's just the way it is with chase movies.So aside from a handful of good action bits and Cuba Gooding Jr's hilarious performance, 'Chill Factor' is an empty dud..
Ulrich takes off with it, teaming up with an ice cream delivery man (Cuba Gooding Jnr, who's fast gabbling got on my nerves) pursued by Firth and his posse, where from here, it's an almost non suspense filled chase, with a couple of high thrills, but really just steady driving, nothing happenings, going on, here, where we're left with CBJ's ranting (someone give me a gun).
He ends up with elvis and most of the movie is a typical chase scene with a second guy, Tim(Skeet Ulrich) fighting with Arlo as they try to avoid Brynner and his crew.
acting at its worst (except cuba, he was ok but far from good), totally predictable and cheap storyline, cheap cliché everywhere, brainless dialogues, try-hard-but-fail kind of comedy, cheap wanna-be effects and action, ultra-unrealistic, ...
if you still think this one was good you better take a break from action movies and get back into reality..
The cast: Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich were great as the protagonists and I love Hudson Leick (pity she didn't have a larger role in this one).
Skeet ulrich (scream) does very well as Tim macson Cuba gooding Jr is alright as Arlo the ice cream dude.
But then check this out: In comes our heroes (Skeet Ulrich and Cuba Gooding, Jr.) who are tasked with transporting the deadly weapon to a safe haven after Paymer (who is mortally wounded by the slightly ticked-off Firth) shows up with this top-secret, explosive weapon tucked under his shirt (???).
A good robot movie needs lots of great cliches so you can have fun predicting them.
this is a good movie for people who like action and comedy.
I loved this movie I was not sure what it would be like as I did not know many of the actors but I laughed almost all the time the actors played off each other very well the story was really good "not too far fetched" the scenery was awsome the car chase up the mountain road WOW!.
Chill Factor is a mish-mash of other, better action films.
If you like action movies then I think you would enjoy Chill Factor.
So take some bad acting and some bad dialogue and try to overlook them  because when Cuba and Skeet get together, the film never stops entertaining.
I loved Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich.
Cuba Gooding stars in this action drama about a terrorist and a really nasty chemical weapon.
This was the case with Chill Factor but this movie wasn't as entertaining as I thought it was going to be.The story revolves around a military science experiment that goes bad.
In walks Skeet Ulrich and Cuba Gooding Jr's characters.
Some films - notably the first Lethal Weapon - manage to straddle the divide to good effect, but not this movie.
But CHILL FACTOR, wants to be another big action film with little plot and big action scenes.
The only thing in this film that somewhat stands out is the acting by the two leads (Gooding Jr. and Ulrich).
Chill Factor (1999): Dir: Hugh Johnson / Cast: Skeet Ulrich, Cuba Gooding Jr., David Paymer, Peter Firth, Kevin J.
The chemistry between Skeet and Cuba is good enough and it has a couple of spectacular action sequences, but when all is said and done that doesn't make it anything more than a run of the mill, average Buddy, Buddy film.
It had some decent comedy in it at times, and the truck chase scene on the highway is by far the film's most effective action sequence, but I had to put up with a lot of silly dialog and a rather bland villain for my liking.