Two opinions on Good Company Two

David Malacrida
Good Company Two confused me

I’m trying to fix my point of view about Good Company Two, and after an hour of thinking about it, I’m still trying to figure out what wins, what I liked, or what disappointed me. I won’t talk about the level here, because as you can guess, it’s simply insane, as are the number of spots. That’s off the topic. If you want ski porn only, don’t even read the rest of the article, because you’ll like the movie.

With this movie, I feel like they tried to say something, but the message isn’t clear. At first it seems like it’s an urban documentary, and this part is well done. The beginning is fun and brings you directly into the urban world: meeting people in the streets, for good or bad reasons. These sequences are probably the best parts of the movie. But then the middle section comes: two backcountry sessions without any story behind. Then some park footage without any background, and you begin to feel a little lost. These middle sections contrast with the well-done urban story.

The closing segment’s return to urban is reassuring. But when we think we’ve found the axis of the movie again, the park shoot arrives. The park footage is top-notch, but the narrative focuses on Tom Wallisch’s own story, which somehow doesn’t quite jive with the rest of the movie.

This misunderstanding left a bad taste in my mouth, even despite the awesome voice message from Paul Mandell at the end. I think the movie would work better if it were cut into different episodes—urban, backcountry, park—because separately, I loved those segments.

If I have to advise you, I would say go and watch it, because it’s only five euros and the quality of urban as well as the tricks are more than worth it. But don’t expect a real story behind.

Ethan Stone
Good Company Two is so good, it’s almost boring.

Good Company Two is so good, it’s almost boring. How does that make any sense? First off, no doubt about it: Good Company packs more banger shots in one minute of footage than most ski films manage in an hour-long video. After all, that’s the film style that Good Company co-creators Tom Wallisch and Kyle Decker have been all about since they first collaborated on “The Wallisch Project” in 2013: collecting the absolute best ski shots possible, with no frills or fluff. Ski porn at its purest.

Good Company Two expands on that tradition with a 27-minute cut, the crew’s longest film yet, following Wallisch and friends through a frenzy of street, park and backcountry shooting. A mind-boggling variety of tricks are stomped by an all-star cast of skiers, punctuated by bangers from the everpresent, effortlessly superhuman Wallisch. It’s all well and good, and the endless succession of A-plus shots (minus some powder landings that should have been cut) are broken up with some hilarious scene-setting, including a Massachusetts cop who apparently can’t speak English, and of course, who can forget cameraman Paul Mandell?

But even so, Good Company Two, like its predecessors “One” and “The Wallisch Project” itself, still lacks a storytelling backbone to pull the whole picture together. Without some clever thread of narrative or editorial creativity to spice things up, pure ski-porn films can lack appeal for those of us wanting to do more than study the current state of urban and park skiing under a microscope. The long pile-up of banger shots eventually looks exactly like what it is: a long pile-up of banger shots. Of course, that’s what Good Company is going for—and if that’s the goal, they’ve certainly nailed it.

Good Company Two is now available on iTunes, and will be also screened at the High Five Festival in Annecy, France next month.