Plot: A married couple of cat burglars scheme to rob a set of stolen diamonds from the local mafia only to be hampered by persistent police detectives, another scam artist, and a rival mob group.
The PM Entertainment logo appears, the credits say ‘A Richard Pepin and Joseph Merhi Production’ and then the cast reveals Traci Lords and Zach Galligan. Serotonin released.
Ice stars Traci Lords as a cat burglar who steals diamonds with her husband Charley Reed (Phillip Troy) but when they steal from the mob their lives are changed forever.
As with the majority of PM movies Ice wastes no time in getting going opening with a diamond heist in progress; the police arrive and we are introduced to hero cop Det. Alan Little (Jaime Alba) who takes out the trash but one of the robbers gets away with the diamonds. It’s then about 15 seconds before we have a fight scene between gangsters and the movie rarely lets up from then on.
Despite having wall to wall action Ice isn’t a movie I watch that often mostly due to the fact I found Traci Lords’ character Ellen unsympathetic so you are never rooting for her to get the diamonds back. She tries too hard to come across as tough or angry and it never convinces. Zach Galligan plays her douchebag brother who never finds redemption and is also totally unlikeable; it’s still interesting to see him play a villain after his nice guy Billy in the Gremlins movies.
The cop Alan Little is arguably the only character I didn’t dislike as he is a true hero who for some reason thinks Ellen is redeemable; I’m not sure why as she never shows any remorse for her crimes and she is rarely kind to him so I don’t know what he saw in her.
The music has some slinky saxophone and electric guitars and works for the movie perfectly; it’s not especially memorable but it does the job.
I do like how even though Ellen isn’t especially likable, the story goes in some surprising directions leading to an explosive finale.
Overall, Ice is packed with fights, explosions and shoot-outs but it’s let down by a lack of sympathetic characters and some questionable acting; we at least have nice guy cop Alan Little to root for and it’s fun to see Zach Galligan play the total opposite of Billy in Gremlins.
