Let's be honest here. There are some movies
that just don't have any business whatsoever of being any damn
good. And yet, against all odds, they wind up entertaining us,
thus proving the notion that it isn't always the story you tell,
but how well you tell it.
By all rights, Cliffhanger is a dog. The film
is blissfully ignorant of just how predictable it is, with a
plot that is thinner than the mountain air setting. The set
up is that Sylvester Stallone is up in the mountains. Bad guys
are also up in the mountains. It will be up to Stallone to stop
the bad guys. Anything beyond that is really not very important,
but because I'm a reviewer, I'll try to cover some of the bases.
Cliffhanger opens with a scene so often repeated
that I think there must be a law in Hollywood that it must appear
in any movie involving a mountain (but perhaps never done better
than in this film). Gabe Walker (Stallone), a mountain rescue
ranger, is climbing with friends when a harness fails. Walker
tries to save the woman attached to the harness, but alas, he
can't hold on, her hand slips from his, and she plummets hundreds
of feet to her death (side note for your consideration: why
do harnesses only fail when you're hundreds of feet up, and
not when you're just 10 feet off the ground?).
Watching the accident is Walker's friend,
fellow rescue ranger, and the woman's boyfriend, Hal Tucker
(Michael Rooker). Tucker blames Walker for the accident and
holds resentment toward him that will become important later
in the film for the precise reason that a film like this one
can't afford any plot points that don't relate directly back
to the main story.
I mentioned that this opening scene is a cliche,
but I'd be lying if I didn't also point out that it is extremely
chilling and filmed very skillfully. In fact, skilllful presentation
of the material is a theme running throughout the film and is
what ultimately saves it from doom.
Another Hollywood law is that Sylvester Stallone
must appear on film with a villain, and Cliffhanger dutifully
supplies one. John Lithgow plays Eric Qualen, who masterminds
a spectacular mid-air heist of millions of dollars from a US
treasury plane. The heist goes off nearly flawlessly. Unfortunately,
when talking about a plane-to-plane transfer of millions of
dollars, "nearly flawlessly" isn't quite good enough
and the result is a plane crash that leaves Qualen, his gang
of thieves and the money stranded atop a mountain.
Qualen signals the mountain rescue squad,
with the intent to use them to get down to a more reasonable
altitude, and then kill them. Tucker and several other rangers
come to the rescue, only to be held hostage in exchange for
safe passage down. Naturally, it is up to super-mountain climber
Sylvester Stallone to come to the rescue (is it really possible
for someone to be that skilled at climbing AND be that muscular?
You'd think the bulk would be a huge hindrance).
Renny Harlan, who also gave us Die Hard 2,
proves that he really knows how to direct action. I'm convinced
that in any other hands, Cliffhanger would have been a completely
miserable wreck of a film. As is, there isn't a believable moment
on screen, and several moments that are outright laughable (John
Lithgow is a very talented actor and fantastic in dramatic roles,
but he just goes way too far over the top when he plays a villain
-- it worked in Buckaroo Bonzai, but that was a comedy), but
despite all of that, Cliffhanger still manages to be entertaining.
Great cinema this is not. But then again,
not every film must be a work of art. Sometimes you just want
to eat some popcorn and watch a dumb movie about a bunch of
guys beating the crap out of each other while hanging by their
fingernails from the side of a cliff. For those occasions, Cliffhanger
is the perfect solution.
