Cliffhanger (1993)
An avalanche of thrills
I was going to rent a movie about water that makes people explode today, but then I went outdoors and it was cold. Since I was now cold, because outdoors had made it so, I thought to myself “I should do a cold movie tonight,” and so I did. Mind you, the aversion to watching holiday movies still flickers about, so it won’t be a seasonal cold movie - just a movie with a lot of cold. What’s colder than a mountain? Put on your dumb pants and turn up the heater, we’re about to see a real Cliffhanger.
Despite the setting and the name, Cliffhanger is really a heist movie where the main characters get caught up in the plot. Our main trio is actual some search and rescue up in the park, free-climbing there way to saving folks who’ve gotten themselves stranded in the weirdest places (for the case of the movie, largely on top of mountains). An equipment malfunction causes a mutual friend to die and causes a rift between the characters, with the leading man taking it particularly hard (and hanging up his rescue shoes, so to speak). After making a trip back to collect some things, he’s roped into helping his once-friend go and save some folks stuck up on the mountain - but all isn’t as it seems, and they walk into a full blown heist-gone-wrong. Now it’s a fight for survival in more way then one as they get just as high up as the stakes.
I’d argue that it’s not really a plot you see with all the specifics that often. Sure, heist movies that go wrong happen all the time - but oddly enough, most of the funnest ones are always some weird twist on it, like “heist goes wrong because of ghosts” or “heist goes wrong because of hurricane”. You can think of this like that, except “heist goes wrong up on a mountain” and have a pretty decent idea of what to expect - although I should also point out that the bad guys are the ones involved in the heist, so it’s no Oceans Eleven sort of heist movie. There is humor, in that classic one-liners and interactions sort of way, but it’s not really meant to be an out-right comedy by any means. There’s at least three names in it that plenty of people should recognize to help bolster the acting talent, but with a leading man like Stallone you can still expect plenty of action to punch up the cold rocky heights.
All of that being said and sounding like praise, the movie can be pretty dumb at times. I guess it’s probably that classic action movie roots in there. The dumb does provide for a rather entertaining movie though, so I don’t hold it fully as a mission-breaking failure even if some might find it better to think of as a guilty pleasure then an actual “good” movie. Acting can be quite good at times, and other times somehow feel so dumb you wonder how many takes they took before deciding that was the one to use. The villains are all just cookie cutter baddies, not really having development nor does the movie care enough to try - they are all just expendable fodder for the good guys to overcome. The good guys have their little opening-scene drama to rift between them, which seems to just be resolved by the end despite nothing really happening to flesh it out besides some mutual rescuing. It’s quite character-lite, instead focusing more on the thrills and action scenes.
Rescue station one.
Some of those thrills are really good though. They use the environment they’ve chose well, throwing everything from iced-over water to avalanches and bats in there. Some of the most effective scenes are actually ones where the threat is largely the environment - like if a rope or ladder will hold as someone uses it to escape. The more human based danger largely feels like a martial arts movie where attackers flow in one at a time to trouble the hero - regardless of how many are around. It works, but you certainly don’t feel like the baddies are the smartest group with how they handle things a lot of the times. Although you would assume it’s mostly the Stallone show, they do give some scenes to his team good co-stars, giving them a little bit to shine in either the heroic section or in the emotional sections. Yeah, the lead lady might cause a change of heart to really get the movie in motion in the first place, and arrive to help out our main guy - but by the end she also ends up being a brief damsel in distress, so I’d honestly say she doesn’t really get any moment that really gets to feel like she’s a hero like the other two do. Shame really, as the only real big badass moment she gets is undermined by ammunition capacity.
As you might think, the set is pretty beautiful. I mean, mountainside woods and snowy rocks might not really impress everyone, but nature has a way of being pretty impressive to a lot of people through scale and the likes regardless. We also get some cave action, a few old mining or trekking bridges, and a few aircraft interiors in there, so it’s not all just white blanketed scene after white blanketed scene - regardless of it being a lot of it. Costumes work well, with everybody looking pretty well suited for staying warm for the most part, and it being easy enough to tell the rescue-colored good guys apart from the team of dark-clad villains closing in on them. Effects are pretty good - perhaps one or two of them aren’t quite that great, but for the most part nothing takes you out of it that much and they look pretty good. They also do a nice thing a few times during the more violent scenes that involve the use of squibs.
What’s that thing? They cut the audio. It helps to try and add an emotional emphasis to it, combined with some slow down that also gives you a better chance to appreciate the practical effects if your into that sort of thing. Yes, it can play out a bit like “look how evil they are,” but it’s still a nice touch. Outside of that, audio is balanced well, and you don’t have any trouble hearing actor lines. For the most part there isn’t any real horrible deliveries, at least within the bounds of what I would think was “actor fault” as opposed to “writing fault” - which isn’t to say that everything (like accents) necessarily come off as super high grade. I don’t honestly remember any of the music even though I know it was there, so I’m banking my money on the fact it did it’s job in the now of the movie and helped to amp up scenes suitably without ever overtaking what I was witnessing and demanding my attention.
Where’s Billy’s insulin?
Is it the best movie to ever exist? Nah, but it’s still pretty fun. It’s another spin on the heist-gone-wrong movie type, and it gives you enough attempts at things that even for it’s worst parts you can generally say “at least they tried” and move on with enjoying what you are watching. Some nice cold scenery, some well-enough action and high-stakes environmental danger, and some good enough if not maybe over-done acting make it an enjoyable watch even if you don’t find yourself coming back again and again. Best of all? This one doesn’t even end on a cliffhanger.