CLIFFHANGER
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1993 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
CLIFFHANGER is everything you'd expect from a summer blockbuster starring Sylvester Stallone--big, predictable, and dumb as houses.
As action pictures go, CLIFFHANGER has its fair share of white-knuckled, sweat-inducing sequences, and those sequences aren't bad. But when Sly isn't falling off a cliff, or perched high atop a precipice, or flexing his muscles in general ... well, the movie's just plain dull. Perhaps Stallone's stunt double would have been better employed in the acting department!
The plot, for want of a better word, is your standard Hero-Who-Has-to-Prove-Himself story. Park ranger and expert mountaineer Gabe Walker (Stallone) goes into seclusion after being involved in a fatal, botched rescue attempt, but is lured out of "retirement" when a government plane carrying $100 million in cold currency goes down in the Colorado Rockies.
Unbeknownst to our fearless rescue ranger, it wasn't the storm that brought the plane down. It's been skyjacked by a ruthless gang of politically incorrect anarchists, led by international crackpot Qualen (John Lithgow, in danger of playing one psycho too many). Lithgow does seem to be having some fun with this role; his Qualen is a malevolent, single-entendre quipping maniac, with a stock generic European accent. It's a shame the writers give him some of the flattest one-liners since, well, Stallone's last movie (the addle-brained STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT).
Qualen's bunch of assorted heavies get more than they bargained for when they force Walker to "fetch" the scattered suitcases of booty. Aided and abetted by ex-partner Hal Tucker (the familiar-faced William Rooker), Walker goes mano-a-mano with the bickering thugs, a sort of man-against- the-mountain in reverse. Tucker's still smarting over a hand-holding incident between his ex-girlfriend and Walker, so there's interpersonal tension and then some!
Walker's ex-girlfriend--there are a lot of ex's in this movie--Jessie Deighan is played by TV's Janine Turner (NORTHERN EXPOSURE). Her emotional range in this film is severely untested; she huffs and puffs up the mountainside, screeches in a cave full of vampire bats (in one of CLIFFHANGER'S several allusions to the INDIANA JONES movies), and whines in a ho-hum "Don't hog all the guilt for yourself, spread it around some" head-to-head with Stallone that detracts from all that pretty scenery.
Bringing up the rear is the craggy-faced Ralph Waite (resurrected from TV's THE WALTONS) who plays Frank, a forest ranger with a wacky artistic bent. Further comic relief is provided by a couple of surfer-dude base jumpers, whose luck you just know will run out.
Trevor Jones' overblown score is virtually identical to his collaboration on last year's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, give or take a chord. It's fine when the visuals comprise grand, sweeping shots of the majestic Italian Dolomites (doubling for the Rocky Mountains), but its oft-repeated theme grows tiresome during some of the film's less cinematic scenes.
Director Renny Harlin (DIE HARD 2) is in familiar terrain here, but Stallone's larger-than-life Gabe Walker is no John McClane (Bruce Willis moves his mouth when he speaks, for starters). As expected, the punch- drunk Stallone gets the crap kicked out of him, but barely lets out a grunt (saving those for the film's more dialogue-bound moments instead). After all, anyone who can survive being smashed into a cliff face by the weight of a disabled helicopter and still work in a one-liner can't be bothered by a little internal bleeding.
All this adds up to a very tired formula that cries out for a boost of adrenaline, but co-writer Stallone can contribute only testosterone. Will the two rangers battle the bad guys and make up by the film's conclusion? Will Jessie be suitably impressed by Gabe's rock climbing skills? Will Gabe ever find it in his heart to forgive himself? Will the audience wish they'd paid matinee prices instead?
This movie isn't even worth trashing. It's Sly Stallone up a mountain with bad guys. But then what else did you expect? For all its spectacular aerial footage and gravity-defying stunt work, CLIFFHANGER is a snowjob of a movie that amounts to nothing more than thin peaks.
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