Don't look Down! (Cliffhanger (DVD))

Member Name: vincent.buchan

Product:	Cliffhanger (DVD)
Date:	23/10/01 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great action, excellent camera work

Disadvantages: a little unbeliveable (but who's picky?)

I don't know why people say that, don't look down. It just makes you think about it then look. Anyway.....

I knew this was going to have a little more meaning than his usual gun-fight movies when he has that little accident on the mountain right at the start (don't want to reveal too much). With that unexpected turn of events, Cliffhanger just carries on.

Stallone plays the part of Gabe Walker, a mountaineer who serves with the mountain rescue team in the Colorado Rockies. Trying to suppress the guilt of the little accident by leaving his job, he is suddenly thrown back in to the profession and now troubled by the activities of a group of terrorists who hijack a treasury plane loaded with valuable cargo with the aid of rogue treasury agent Travers (Rex Linn). A welcome surprise is the villain, played by English actor John Lithgow. Even though some of his lines are really bad and unbelivable, he still does a very impressive job of being the villian.

The action is fast and frequent, which is a good thing, and even has a amazing mid air transfer of precious cargo and people between two planes. Unfortunately, the planes crash and the cases are randomly dropped into the Rockies. Fortunately, the high tech suitcases have tracking devices built in. Unfortunately for Lithgow, only the rogue Treasury Agent knows the many random codes for the dector. Fortunately, he is still alive and is willing to operate the homing device (or there would be no story would there?). Unfortunately, Lithgow wants to see him dead. But there is still a problem. They don't know their way around the mountains so they hatch a cunning plan. They send a fake SOS signal and call in the mountain rescue climbers who have to know their way. Unfortunately, the rescue team have no idea what they're in for. The climbing sequences are absolutely unbelievable. There is a real sense of fear to watch the characters scuttle up icy vertical walls without a safety n
et (or any gear in one climb).

Of course, the Stallone is able to escape from the crooks and Stallone does his expected one man army (and a woman in this case) demolition of the terrorists, so in that sense it is a predictable action movie.

Cliffhanger is set apart by the quality of the photography (Alex Thomson) and direction (Renny Harlin) that gets the viewer up close and personal with some of the meanest surfaces you ever want to see. In addition, the deadly shots of the mountain faces is well represented by long shots that show the climbers as little dots on the astonishing walls of stone and ice.

Incidentally, the filming was mostly in the Dolomites of Italy, not the actual Rocky Mountains. How does Cliffhanger summarise up? It’s a solid four star film on the action scale and well worth adding to your video collection!

Summary: