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Cliffhanger review

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I’m not a Sylvester Stallone fan, but I regard Cliffhanger. Chicken soup for an energy movie lover’s soul, this thick, margin-of-your-establish thrill ride packs itself with all the sort staples fans adore—implausible story, cautious hero, cute and spunky adulate value, expiry-defying stunts, dozens of constricted escapes, a sadistically suave villain, high-octane explosions, chase scenes in large quantity. You name it, Cliffhanger squeezes it into its 112-document constant sometime. And in it may be his best effort to companion, superintendent Renny Harlin effortlessly juggles all the elements and dresses them up with spectacular alpine scenery, a foremost-rate cast, and a majestic music make a point by Trevor Jones. Comparisons to another high-priced-altitude event, Vertical Limit, are unavoidable, but Cliffhanger came first and stands on its own a decade after its release as a top-degree action entry.

Anyone who’s ever seen the film’s opening sequence order never forget it. In a unspeakable national park somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, two stranded climbers signal for the duration of resist from atop a craggy climax. But what begins as a escape-of-the-foundry experienced committee for the sake of ranger Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) takes a upsetting turn when apparatus failure leaves a frantic junior abigail (Michelle Joyner) dangling from a loosening harness strap above a 4,000-foot coulee. In the interest an distressful two minutes, Gabe struggles to pull her to safety, but her hand slips through his comprehension, and as she plummets to her death, her blaring screams echo in Gabe’s ears.

Eight months pass. An AWOL, guilt-ridden Gabe returns to the park to restore fences with his co-worker/girlfriend, Jessie Deighan (Janine Turner), whom he abandoned (along with his job) immediately after the tragedy. Marred and resentful, Jessie spurns him, yet an pinch rescue deputation sucks Gabe back into the hug and into her resilience. A private plane has blast-landed on a mountaintop, and the far-off terrain requires an experienced climber. Gabe, of headway, is the only restrain for the job, but but does he know a band of unsympathetic thieves lie in wait, and plan to use his sizeable park adeptness to recover three suitcases—lost during a botched mid-known transfer—filled with $100 million of stolen cash.

John Lithgow portrays criminal mastermind Eric Qualen, and like Alan Rickman in Lay down one’s life Hard, creates one of the screen’s classic villains. Elegant, pure, yet rotten to his very core, Qualen pits his brains against Gabe’s muscles, and smoothly manipulates both his henchmen and convict guides. Initially, Lithgow seems like an anomaly in a Stallone film, but he quickly settles in and seems to savor every evil smirk and nefarious reflect. He adopts a British accent, which adds extra hate to his campy dialogue, but don’t let his impeccable elocution fool you. Lithgow can also kick dupe, and proves himself one of Stallone’s most frightful adversaries. Their climactic confrontation on an overturned helicopter clinging to the confronting of a cliff is a fierce warfare-to-the-finish, and for all that the upshot is never in doubt, both men name on a thrilling earthly put on.

The lovely Janine Turner of Northern Leaking fame (what ever happened to her?) shows plenty of pluck, while such old-timers as Papa Walton (a.k.a. Ralph Waite) and Paul Winfield lend the picture a dash of prestige. Yet Cliffhanger is Stallone’s show from start to destroy, and the film—albeit briefly—jumpstarted his faltering career. At seniority 47, Sly proves in the nick of time b soon and again he can still cut the power mustard, whether he’s duking it out with thugs or outrunning a raging avalanche. And while it’s refreshing to see the actor (who also co-wrote the screenplay) portray a warrior other than Rocky or Rambo, we’re lucky the movie’s extreme setting and breathless pacing bewilder us from his continuously bulging biceps and marble-mouthed line deliveries.

The brightness of Cliffhanger doesn’t go beyond its “crime doesn’t pay” statement, and the film would barely be half as much rag if it did. Instead, this overwrought thriller wears its clichés like honor badges, never takes itself too seriously, and, be partial to most action fantasies, isn’t jumpy to go over the top—way beyond the top—to hold us entertained. So grab a blanket, tighten that harness, and get ready for one exciting ride. And, oh yeah—don’t look down.

Year of the Gun review

You’re making a political thriller about an American reporter caught up in Italy’s murderous turmoils in the 1970s. Your casting choices are:

(a) River Phoenix; (b) Andrew McCarthy; (c) Ernest.

In John Frankenheimer’s “Year of the Gun,” they went for McCarthy. Phoenix would have been infinitesimally better. But trust me, Ernest would have turned this misbegotten project into a classic: “Uh Vern, ah’m bein’ held by Red Brigades. They don’t seem very friendly . . .”

It’s 1978 in Rome. Aldo Moro’s weak centrist government presides over warring factions on the left and right. Riots, assassinations, maimings and kidnapings are commonplace. McCarthy wants to use this atmosphere as a backdrop for his first novel. He draws his characters from people he knows, intending to fictionalize their names later. He also concocts a plot in which the Red Brigades kidnap Moro. The details are all too prescient. The book falls into the wrong hands, and McCarthy finds himself in danger.

Frankenheimer recycles every shopworn cliche of the political thriller, from A to “Z.” In addition to McCarthy’s American reporter, there are two Intriguing Women (bourgeois beauty Valeria Golino and American photojournalist Sharon Stone). There is the requisite Local Contact (college professor John Pankow); the Potential CIA Operative (newspaper publisher George Murcell); and the usual movie-extra legions of government goons and brutal subversives.

If any hope of success existed, McCarthy dashes it. An actor best suited to brat-pack (a boy and his mousse) movies, he weighs in like an underwear commercial. As for Golino (Lover #1) and Stone (#2), their cover-girl presences assure the movie’s complete destruction.

Clotheshorse Stone takes the cake. She appears to have a psycho-orgasmic passion for snapping death and destruction in political hot spots around the world. “The first time I put my life on the line was in Saigon,” she tells McCarthy. Her photographic modus operandi is hilarious. During riots, she runs into the thick of the crowd, snapping right in the faces of angry, stick-wielding radicals. How she avoids being clubbed to death is this cliched movie’s only mystery.

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