Cliffhanger (1993) TriStar/Action-Adventure-Thriller RT: 113 minutes Rated R (strong violence and language) Director: Renny Harlin Screenplay: Michael France and Sylvester Stallone Music: Trevor Jones Cinematography: Alex Thomson Release date: May 28, 1993 (US) Cast: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Rex Linn, Caroline Goodall, Leon, Craig Fairbrass, Ralph Waite, Paul Winfield, Gregory Scott Cummins, Denis Forest, Michelle Joyner, Max Perlich, Trey Brownell, Vyto Ruginis, John Finn, Bruce McGill, Jeff McCarthy. Box Office: $84M (US)/$255M (World)
Rating: ***
Cliffhanger is as silly as action movies come and that’s a good thing. Action movies, with their one-man armies and laws of everything-defying stunts, are inherently silly. It’s what makes them entertaining. If they went for realism, we’d have a lot of PTSD-causing movies like Platoon. Nobody wants that from an action movie.
Cliffhanger came at just the right time for star Sylvester Stallone who, at the time, was in a career slump with a string of flops that included Over the Top, Rambo III, Lock Up, Rocky V, Oscar and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. Only 1989’s Tango & Cash, in which he teamed up with Kurt Russell, did any real business. In any event, the Italian Stallion was in dire need of a solo hit and Cliffhanger was that hit. While it’s domestic gross of $84 million was hardly record-breaking, it performed better than all of the aforementioned titles (except T&C). It helped a lot that it was actually a good picture.
Stallone plays Gabe Walker, a rescue ranger in the Colorado Rockies. An expert mountain climber, he can’t let go of the guilt over causing the death of the girlfriend of his best friend/partner Hal Tucker (Rooker, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer). The girl fell to her death during a rescue mission and Gabe blames himself for not holding on tighter. Hal blames him for it too. After an eight-month absence, Gabe comes back to collect his things including girlfriend/fellow ranger Jessie (Turner, Northern Exposure). She urges him to stay and patch things up with Hal. He just wants to go.
Meanwhile, a large shipment of money from the US Treasury is hijacked mid-air by a gang of thieves led by former military intelligence officer Eric Qualen (Lithgow, Ricochet). Of course, there’s an inside man. That would be Travers (Linn, CSI: Miami), a Treasury agent looking for a huge payoff. Naturally, something goes wrong and the bad guys’ plane crashes on a mountainside. The three cases of money containing $100 million in uncirculated large-denomination bills have landed in different areas of the Rockies. Good thing they’re equipped with tracking devices making them easy to find. The problem is getting to them through rough, unfamiliar terrain. Qualen makes a bogus distress call to the ranger station and Hal responds. Jessie talks Gabe into helping him out. As expected, it’s a bitter reunion. That all gets pushed to the side when the two men realize they’ve been duped. Qualen forces them at gunpoint to lead them to the suitcases.
Predictably, Stallone’s character manages to escape, making it easy for him to start taking down the mercenaries one by one while trying to rescue his old friend. He gets help from Jessie who went out looking for the guys after realizing something was amiss. In true Die Hard fashion, Gabe turns into a one-man killing machine. Violence and mayhem ensue. That’s when Cliffhanger gets truly exciting.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for action movies, especially the ones where the hero racks up a decent body count which Stallone does here. My favorite scene in Cliffhanger is when Gabe impales one of the bad guys on a stalactite. That was really cool! The movie also has shootings, stabbings, beatings and one drowning. In other words, it’s business as usual for a 90s action flick.
Rewatching Cliffhanger the other night, I was transported back to the halcyon days of my moviegoing youth when I felt shivers of anticipation every time I saw the Carolco logo come up between the TriStar logo and the start of the movie. Carolco is the production company behind action classics like Rambo: First Blood Part II, Extreme Prejudice, Red Heat, Total Recall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Basic Instinct and Universal Soldier. Cliffhanger fits in perfectly on that list of titles. Directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2), it’s a solid actioner.
Stallone is always good in this type of movie. He may not have a lot of dramatic range, but he kicks ass very well. Lithgow makes a great nasty villain. Okay, the fake English accent might be a bit much, but what good is an action movie that’s afraid to go over the top. See what I did there? Turner is okay as the spunky female/love interest. There’s not a lot to say about her performance or character. Ralph Waite (aka the dad from The Waltons) shows up as a veteran helicopter pilot who fancies himself an artist. He paints these really bad pictures you couldn’t even give away.
The action scenes and stunts are very well-orchestrated. The cinematography is top-notch. The score by Trevor Jones enhances the sense of excitement. Cliffhanger scores high in the technical department. Not a single millisecond of it is even remotely believable. So what? It tells a good story. It’s exciting, violent and action-packed. It has brave heroes and loathsome villains. The writers know the genre. The screenplay may not be all that polished, but it hits all the right beats. Plus, it’s a welcome return to form for Sly. It’s the perfect summer action movie, especially with all that snow.
