When will people in movies learn that rope bridges never work out?
Awww, the early 90s – the final days of this type of classic action movie with classic action movie dudes in them doing classic action movie dude things. While classic action movies would linger on the for the rest of the decade the new guard of action dudes would soon take over: Keanu Reeves, Jet Li, Jason Statham, Hugh Jackman (along with a bunch of comic book actors), and Tom Cruise was yet to become the full fledged action star he would be for the next 25 years after 1996’s Mission Impossible. During the early 90s Stallone, Arnold, Russell, Seagal, and Van Damme still reigned supreme at the box office.
Cliffhanger is a film that isn’t as good as I remember it being. Granted, my tastes have changed a lot since like 2003 or whenever I last watched this. I’m not super into action movies these days unless they’re really, really good like John Wick, Fury Road, or Mission Impossible flicks. Despite that Cliffhanger is still a perfectly decent if utterly formulaic action film where the protagonist has to overcome some traumatic event and mend broken relationships through the course of killing some baddies – it’s a very efficient day or so for Stallone. But what sets Cliffhanger apart from most action flicks is situating the film in the mountains. There’s some nice photography along the way, some excellent stuntwork and some nice practical effects. The fight scenes are quite good too, especially the cave fight between Sly and Leon, and the fight with the thin ice was fun too. What really lets the film down is the nonsensical story.
The only reason she fell was because she couldn't wrap her hand around those 24 inch pythons, brother!
As I said, Stallone is overcoming some trauma, the trauma being he risked his life to save Michael Rooker’s lady…a lady he convinced to climb the mountain that led to her falling to her death. And this whole scene is weird because it seems like Rooker only just started seeing her. And she asks Sly if they’re still on for dinner (was this a date between them, or like a double date? It’s confusing) yet when she dies and Rooker blames Sly, he acts like he was madly in love with her and it sure didn’t seem that way. Also Stallone acts like he loved her too. How long did they know each other? The film doesn’t tell us any of this. So the manufactured tension of Sly/Rooker having to stay alive as hostages for murderous thieves doesn’t quite work. But they make up for that without about 35 combined minutes of gun pointing.
I chose to believe Michael Rooker's character became so distraught after the traumatic events of Cliffhanger that he returned home to Atlanta to get fucked up with his brother Daryl before zombies took over.
There is also some manufactured tension between Sly and Chopper Lady, who was his girl, maybe? I don’t know. The film really didn’t do a good job of establishing these relationships despite spending nearly 30 minutes establishing these relationships. Anyways, she guilt trips him for leaving town because of the trauma of the girl falling during the beginning, and basically everyone really hates Sly for trying to save someone’s life and being sad he failed…it’s odd. But these two are just egregiously passive-aggressive towards each other and if they were dating before, I don’t think it would’ve worked out.
The mid-air heist itself is one of the highlights of the film as we see them zipline from one plane to another and there are explosions and gunfire and double crosses and old school fun: ACTUAL EXPLOSIONS. But the heist goes wrong and three cases of money fall and are scattered along some mountains before the escape plane crashes. Their fake distress call brings in Sly ‘just in town for a quickie with Chopper Lady’ Stallone and Michael ‘I hate that fucking guy’ Rooker to the site, only for them to be taken hostage as guides to lead the thieves to their money.
Stuntman Simon Crane was paid 1 million to do this stunt with no safety net or trick photography. The insurance company refused to insure it, so Stallone reduced his salary so the stuntman could be paid.
The thieves, led by a really fun performance of John Lithgow, are the most entertaining part of Cliffhanger. I laughed so hard when one had a fucking grenade launcher of all things, and cackled when he shot grenades up a mountain…at their money…to kill Stallone, which of course caused an avalanche (duh) and killed the guy with the launcher. The Fed working with the thieves has this locator thing he uses as leverage not to die because you have to input a random 4 digit code like every 20 minutes and there are 50,000 codes…so basically we’re supposed to believe this guy not only memorized them all, but he doesn’t spend hours putting in wrong codes until he finds a right one, because we see him at times need to put in a few codes. It just seems like a really, really, REALLY stupid security measure.
At least SOMEONE went through some stalagmite!
One let down though is I think at least half the deaths in this movie were people falling. I guess it makes sense with a name like Cliffhanger though. What isn't a let down is the way, despite being up in the freezing mountains surrounded by snow, is how much of the film Sly spends in a T-shirt to bring all the ladies VIP passes to the gun show. Also he goes on a rescue mission in the cold without a toque or ear protection? Just a baseball cap? 110% badass.
Stallone doesn't use firearms in Cliffhanger because he's always carrying two massive guns.
Lithgow is that evil foreigner guy who was a very popular villain archetype in the 80s and 90s for obvious reasons. He’s supposed to be super smart, but he makes a plethora of boneheaded decision along the way. He’s the super classic action movie villain who kills more of his own men than the hero does and it’s like…who would work with this guy who just kills his own people willy nilly? He even kills hot evil Chopper Babe (whom we know he was going to fuck to death after the plan was executed perfectly) in some pissing match over the Fed with his weird code leverage thing. The Reason? “Now I’m the only one who can fly this helicopter so you can’t kill me!” And then at the end when he has Chopper Lady held hostage to trade for the money, he lets her go before he gets the money (what) and then is shocked when Sly screws up the trade? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO IT AT THE SAME TIME MORON!!! Well, at least he was calm and menacing and had an evil accent. As dumb as the character was, it was a fun villain role.
Let me whisper sweet bullets into your spine, love.
I am surprised that the film didn’t follow the trope of the best friend (Rooker) sacrificing himself so the hero could live, especially since it was coupled with the ex-partner who hates the hero because reason, who ultimately saves the hero through sacrifice, effectively forgiving him; they did the scene, but Rooker lives. And while I like when films don’t go that paint by the numbers, that really takes the personal stakes built up in the film right out of the final third. Evil Lithgow has effectively made himself a bigger villain to his own crew than the good guys. I mean, they have the old guy from the rescue station fly in to be killed, but we know literally nothing about him than I guess they all like him? We get a throwaway bit of information when Chopper Lady says ‘I should buy one of your paintings’. So I guess he paints? Should that make me sad he died? Generally the ‘old mentor murder’ is impactful because we know what they mean to the hero…not this time.
By law I have to ensure roughly 40% of my photos in this article show off those arms.
Cliffhanger is still a mostly solid action picture. It has that classic action movie feel that is just gone these days. The tropes are embraced and that’s fun. The action is good. The use of real locations and some creative set pieces, like Sly and Chopper Lady trying not to catch Coronavirus from all those bats in the cave, rescue the film from the middling script. But it’s the performances that make the film an enjoyable watch. Lithgow is a fun baddy. Stallone is a more toned down, realistic hero in this. Rooker has a knack for treading the line between utter prick and loveable bastard, and he does that here. The baddy crew provides most of the entertainment with their stupid decisions, solid action scenes, and hilarious infighting…it kind of reminded me of watching The Blair Witch Project the way they bickered while lost in the woods. It didn’t live up to my childhood memories, but I still had fun. But maybe that was the weed and whiskey…