(So much for that “clever and daring” airborne heist, eh? Idiots.)
CAST: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Rex Linn, Craig Fairbrass, Caroline Goodall, Leon, Gregory Scott Cummins, Paul Winfield, Michelle Joyner.
DIRECTOR: Renny Harlin
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and highly-questionable decisions involving mountain peaks straight and rope bridges - straight ahead…
There are two ways to approach watching CLIFFHANGER. You can go in there with your left brain (logical) fully activated, ready to analyze every single plot point and line of dialogue with the relentlessness of a Supercomputer. Or you can kill your left brain, fire up you right brain (creative), and just have a jolly good guilty pleasure of a good time. Basically, CLIFFHANGER is the cinematic version of a hottie that wants no commitment, but just several days, weeks, even months of sweaty animal sex and spontaneous adventures and road trips. You can either say yes or no.
Given that I rated CLIFFHANGER fairly high, it’s fairly obvious what my choice was. Yes, you can just call me a Whore. I feel so… dirty. But somehow okay with it.
Anyway, the setting of CLIFFHANGER is the Colorado Rockies (which actually look more like the Italian Dolomites, where this was actually shot), and our heroes are Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) and Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker), two park rangers who are best friends and blaring action movie cliches if I ever saw a pair. I mean, check out those names. For once, I want action heroes with polysyllabic names like Ernest Zuckerman III or Harold J. Morosowski.
NOTE: if there any actual Ernest Zuckerman IIIs or Harold J. Morosowskis out there following this blog, any resemblance to you monikers is strictly coincidental and unintentional. Pardon my dust.
But I digress… So, we open with Hal and his girlfriend Sarah (Michelle Joyner) stuck on one of the faux-Rockies peaks because of his bum knee. Gee, Hal, perhaps we should have considered that before trying to impress our girlfriend with our climbing skills, huh? Now she thinks you are a complete tool because you’re stuck on a mountain peak and have to be rescued by your best friend who has an Action Hero name just like you. Way to be a man.
Hal and his own gal pal, Jessie (Janine Turner), and their old coot of a co-worker, Frank (Rex Linn), zip on over in a chopper to rescue Hal and Sarah. How in the holy hell are they going to do this, considering the mountain peak is hardly bigger than a dinner table for four, and can barely fit Hal and Sarah’s asses?
Well, evidently, there’s this thing that looks like a clothesline that they can extend from the chopper to the mountain peak - and the two stranded dipshits are supposed to shimmy their way across in a harness. I should probably also mention that this is an extremely high peak. We’re talking thousands and thousands of feet. In other words, this isn’t your average zipline adventure.
Long story short, the harness that Sarah is strapped in malfunctions - in a very big way - as she is shimmying across to the chopper, and she slips right out of it. The only thing keeping her from splatting on the canyon floor miles below is her rapidly eroding grip on the clothesline thingie above her. After several futile minutes of trying to save her, Gabe loses grip on her - and she does what we've been kind of hoping she'd do: splat on the canyon floor far below, probably scaring the shit out of a poor raccoon or something. Be honest, now. You know you wanted to see it...
So… flash forward two years or something, and we discover that Hal and Gabe have become estranged. Understandable, since Gabe pretty much killed any chance of Hal getting into Sarah’s pants. Death, apparently, is the ultimate cock-block. Gabe’s own sex life has suffered, since he pretty much ran out on Jessie because of his guilt.
To Jessie’s surprise, though, Gabe turns up in the faux-Rockies again, asking her to leave with him. She reminds him that her home is in the mountains, and that his running away - with our without her - won’t solve a goddamn thing. Smart chick. Too bad she’s wasting it all on a lunkhead that forever looks like he just got done sniffing glue. Oh, wait, that’s just Gabe’s natural expression. My bad. Anyhow, stung by Jessie’s refusal to leave with him, Gabe collects the last of this stuff and decides to leave permanently. Thank. Goodness. Pussy…
Meanwhile, while this sub-Days Of Our Lives plot thread has been unfolding at ground-level, high above the faux-rockies, a U.S. Treasury plane is being hijacked by a bunch of terrorists. At this point, CLIFFHANGER’s second preposterous plot point (the first is trying to pass off the Italian Dolomites as the Colorado Rockies) unfolds: the hijackers plan to do a “plane-to-plane” money transfer that is basically the same clothesline thingie that proved so successful in the opening scene. Needless to say, the suitcases of money goes the same way as Sarah did earlier: south, in a very messy way.
Things get even worse when the hijackers’ plane crashes into the faux-rockies. Unfortunately, they survive the impact. Still got problems, though, considering: (1) they’re in the middle of the mountains, and (2) they need to track their missing dinero. ASAP. Their leader, Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), devises the following brilliant plan: (1) contact the local park ranger station via radio; (2) fabricate some story about needing to be rescued; then (3) force the rangers to help them recover the suitcases of money using high-tech tracking devices. Sounds about as fool-proof a plan as fishing nets made out of caramelized sugar. Good luck with that, Eric.
And guess which ranger is sent to respond to the bogus distress call? And guess what other ranger has a guilt attack and decides to help him? If you answered “Gabe” and “Hal,” then you obviously have already seen this flick. And you probably already know that Jessie and Frank get pulled into the fray, too. And you probably know that Qualen, his own gal pal Kristel (Caroline Goodall), and their merry band of hijackers spend the rest of the film trying to: (1) find the money; (2) kill our heroes; and (3)find a decent cup of hot cocoa to ward off the chill mountain air. Okay, I’m kidding about that last part.
But you know they were thinking about it…
BUT, SERIOUSLY: If there ever was a cinematic guilty pleasure to roll down the pike in the early 90’s, it was CLIFFHANGER. The film features some rather implausible plot points, over-the-top characters, and highly unbelievable stunts. Yet it all somehow works because of director Renny Harlin’s confident and skillful approach to the material. Ultimately, you can’t help but get pulled along for the ride.
The action scenes are breathless and exciting, despite being on the fantastic side. Given a choice between a thrilling, if unbelievable, setpiece and a realistic, but boring, one... most audiences would probably choose the former. Certainly in an action film like CLIFFHANGER, you can’t afford to have any boring sequences. Harlin and his technical crew succeed in keeping our attention, even if the events sometimes do test our disbelief.
The cast seems to be aware that they are not in the latest remake of HAMLET, and approach the popcorn material accordingly. Stallone is all hard-set jaw and brooding mannerisms as Gabe, and that’s enough to set him apart from Rooker and his loose-cannon interpretation of Hal. Stallone and Rooker do make an engaging pair. They’re believable as friends, and that’s good enough to keep our attention as they rediscover their loyalty to one another - and try to save each other. In the end, CLIFFHANGER is really about Gabe and Hal than it is about anyone else.
Janine Turner is spunky and likable as Jessie, and she makes the best of what she is given - which really isn’t much. Jessie is relegated to mostly following Gabe around and expressing her concern over him and the situation. In a tense battle between Gabe and one hijacker in a cavern, she is almost given the opportunity to save the day. Unfortunately, she drops the ball and once again it's up to Gabe to clean up. I wish the writers would have made CLIFFHANGER just a little bit less of a “Boy’s Club.” Still, Turner is an appealing presence - and is great to look at.
John Lithgow as the villainous Eric Qualen is okay - not bad, not great, merely adequate. He seems to be operating faithfully from the Alan Rickman Book Of Suave Villainy that DIE HARD popularized. Lithgow is competent, but he doesn’t make Qualen any different from all the other Hans Gruber-wannabes that became the norm in the wake of DIE HARD’s success.
Actually, Caroline Goodall as Kristel, Qualen’s pilot and second-in-command, is a far more interesting presence. As with Turner and Jessie, I wish the writers had beefed up Kristel’s role. Goodall is such a talented actress that she deserves more of a showcase. The women in this film definitely needed more to do. Contrast CLIFFHANGER’s female characters with those of VERTICAL LIMIT (2000). The women in that film were just as busy as the men - and saved the day more than once. Robin Tunney and Izabella Scorupco were given opportunities that Janine Turner and Caroline Goodall never got. And that’s a shame, because after some point, watching all these guys in CLIFFHANGER going around thumping their chests and being thugs gets a little old.
Even with its flaws, though, CLIFFHANGER is a solid piece of entertainment that might insult your intelligence a little - but only if you let it. If you go into it expecting nothing more than two hours of thrills and jolts, that’s exactly what you’ll get. Expect anything more than that, and you’ll be disappointed. As it is, it’s the definition of a guilty pleasure.
