The Resiliant Bahstads Go Cliffhanging

In many way, Sylvester Stallone's 1993 hit Cliffhanger is like his earlier smash Rambo First Blood Part 2. Obviously it's a dumb, bullshit action thriller but it's much bigger than that simple description. Like Rambo, Cliffhanger is a simple series of ever escalating action set-pieces, filmed on an epic scale, in an extreme, exotic location and delivered in a huge, operatic style. It's also a Die Hard clone as well. Like Under Siege and Passenger 57, you have a team of criminals pulling a caper in an enclosed environment...where only a capable, but solitary man can foil their plans, and free the hostages the baddies have taken. So in Cliffhanger you have a heist, where the money is being recovered from the Rocky Mountains, where the Mountain Rescue team are being held against their will...and only Rambo, er Rocky, er Gabe Walker can stop them. Yeah!

It's Renny Harlin's best movie due to some wiser-than-normal artistic choices. To counteract the bullshit nature of the script he chose to hire Alex Thomson as his photographer. The result is a grounded, realistic feel where the muted colours and rugged texture of the landscape are expertly captured. Trevor Jones delivers a great score (once he's finished ripping off his own Last Of The Mohican's soundtrack) it being distinctive as well as grand and operatic, like the Rambo music. The Rocky Mountain locations (really the Italian Alps) are beautiful and epic in a way no other movie has captured on film.

The whole cast are spot on. Stallone finds a character that works perfectly for his screen persona; a physically outstanding and smart professional combined with a vulnerable everyman personality. Michael Rooker balances aggrieved and pissed off nicely with the loyal and heroic aspects of his character. Janine Turner gets the 2D girlfriend role but at least she's strong willed and cute. Surprisingly for a action movie where characterisation is secondary, the henchmen have been cast so as to be distinctive and memorable. Whether it be Rex Linn's argumentative Travers, Leon's confrontational Kynette, Caroline Goodall's posh-totty Kristel or (personal favorite) Craig Fairbrass's cockney football fanatic Demar, getting to know these guys actually ups the tension when Sly, Rooker and company take them on. Dominating them all is John Lithgow's megalomaniac Eric Quelen, with his brilliantly over the top upper class, contemptuous English accent.

Great thought has been put into the design and execution of the set-pieces, which are imaginative and incredibly filmed. The opening "you're not gonna die" rope-dangling sequence is perhaps it's most tense, but is given a run for it's money shortly after in the excitement stakes. The unique environment is milked dry for imaginative action beats from the use of bats, ice rivers, rickety bridges, rescue helicopters, avalanches, weak rope and faulty climbing gear. The most impressive stunt is perhaps the transfer of a man on a rope between two jet airplanes, thousands of feet above the ground. Priceless.

Harlin films all this with the aid of near flawless special effects and some incredible, new camera rigs and some genuinely shit-your-pants stunts. One of the film's early shots of the camera panning around and over a helicopter while a climber ascends in the background, while people await rescue on the peak (all in one, dynamic shot) I still find astounding. The success of the movie can be seen in the film's trailer, which I still feel (perhaps along with 300) as the best film advert ever cut. For each film trailer the marketing department has to scour the footage to find the most impressive shots that will lure an audience into the movie theatre. It's a testament to Cliffhanger that the whole trailer is bursting at the seams with such money shots, whether it be crashing helicopters (still much better to the similar one in The Matrix), slow motion leaping over cliffs and the mesmerising effect of bullets impacting on ice! It was one of the first trailers to dispense with dialogue and rely on powerful choral music, proving that trailer cutting is an art form unto itself.

So like Rambo, don't dismiss Cliffhanger for it's lack of brain. Instead, admire it's brawn.