CLIFFHANGER: 4K Blu-ray (TriStar, 1993) Sony Home Entertainment

With its nail-biting intensity and breathtaking overheads of craggy mountain turrets in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy subbing in for the Rockies, Renny Harlin’s Cliffhanger (1993) is a high-octane alpine thriller with more gusto than guts, and, a lot more filler than fantasy. Nevertheless, it is ever so slickly packaged to make us forget how threadbare and superficial it all is. The plot, rumored to be the subject of a heated lawsuit between three writers, but eventually settled out of court, casts muscleman Sly Stallone as a careworn climber and reluctant fly boy, doing his best to remain the cynical moralist after an improbable heist goes horribly awry. Setting aside the repeated sight of an implausibly shirtless and muscled up Stallone, dangling precariously several hundred feet from a wire, in a climate that would otherwise have shrunk more than his testicles, and, if he was lucky, lead only to severe hypothermia and a bout of life-threatening pneumonia, Cliffhanger hails from that golden epoch in movie-land actioners, kick-started by Stallone’s 1982…um…classic – First Blood, and, to have reached its tipping point with 1988’s Die Hard. From here, the gutsy action flick really had no place to go but down. Yet, Cliffhanger manages, rather efficiently to resurrect mindless exhilaration, taking audiences on a careening dark ride without restraints or even common sense applied. In hindsight, Cliffhanger also foreshadows the downfall of Carolco Pictures.

The company, ambitiously co-founded by investors, Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna, once hailed as the new impresarios of Hollywood, had watched as their advantage in Tinsel Town steady dried up, or rather, was eroded by a series of bad pictures, and worse, flawed, shortsightedness, effectively to sell off most of their controlling interests in hit films like Cliffhanger.  While First Blood put Carolco on the map, Cliffhanger closes out the company’s lucrative alliance with Sylvester Stallone on a somewhat sour note. As the Rambo franchise proved its merit, Carolco switched its focus to producing even more elephantine and costly kick ass actioners. Stallone, in fact, had signed a ten-picture deal with Carolco following the runaway success of First Blood. The mid-80’s were Carolco’s golden period. But by 1989, the honeymoon, as they say, was over. Vajna bowed out, selling his shares to Kassar for a cool $106 million; Vajna partnering with Disney Inc. to form Cinergi Pictures. The biggest coup lay ahead: Carolco buying up the rights to 1984’s The Terminator, from ailing Hemdale Film Corporation, expressly to make its sequel: Vajna’s clairvoyance, well-rewarded when Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) became the highest-grossing movie in the company’s history.

But the ten-picture movie deal with Stallone repeated stalled, thanks to Carolco’s lack of faith in any of the projects Stallone was eager to pursue. The first reject was Bartholomew vs. Neff, a comedy to have been written and directed by John Hughes; the second, Isobar – a sci-fi/horror flick that would have cast Stallone as a bounty hunter after a genetic mutant aboard a speeding train. The third proposal also met with indifference – Gale Force, a self-professed ‘die hard in a hurricane’ to be directed by Renny Harlin, with Stallone’s Navy Seal pitted against a mastermind sect of modern-day pirates.  Carolco spent almost $10 million on screenplays and Harlin’s agreed upon salary for Gale Force, before pulling the plug altogether, as cost overruns caused their interest to cool. Meanwhile, Carolco’s uneasy mix of expensively mounted blockbusters and small art house flicks were increasing proving unprofitable. While Cliffhanger, earning a whopping $255 million (on its $70 million outlay), would knock one out of the proverbial park, its success was moot, as Carolco had already sold much of its stakes to TriStar, including full distribution rights in exchange for half the budget. Cutbacks, the shelving of other expensive projects already in pre-production, and more bad blood between the studio and creatives hoping to cash in on the trend, helped to hasten the studio’s demise; the final death knell for Carolco – at $100 million – the outrageously big-ticket swashbuckler, Cutthroat Island (1995) begun with high spirits, only to sink like a stone at the box office.

Cliffhanger’s financial arrangement with Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera, Le Studio Canal+, and Pioneer Electric Corporation did nothing to settle Carolco’s existing debts. So, even though Cliffhanger made money for its partners, its trickle-down profits did not make even a dent in Carolco’s financial crisis. As an actioner of a particular ilk and vintage, Cliffhanger is superbly photographed by Alex Thomson, mostly on location in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Dolomites, Italy; the snow-capped Tofane cliffs and tip of Mount Faloria shimmering in frigid wintery splendor. One of the picture’s virtues is that most of its stunts are done full-scale, including a harrowing aerial transfer for which stuntman, Simon Crane was paid a whopping $1 million: the costliest payout for a single action sequence ever. There is little to deny Cliffhanger its breathtaking action sequences, some of the most nail-biting yet achieved on the screen. From the outset, director, Renny Harlan – no stranger to action – illustrates the imminent peril of our protagonists. Cliffhanger’s prologue, finds rescue climber Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) flying to a precarious peak where his pals, Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker), Jessie Deighan (Janine Turner) and, girlfriend, Sarah Collins (Michelle Joyner) have become trapped. While endeavoring a dramatic plane-to-perch rescue Sarah’s harness snaps, leaving her flailing over a deep chasm. Though Gabe is within reach, Sarah plummets to her death leaving Gabe shell-shocked and guilt-ridden.

Flash forward a few months: Gabe has decided to bow out of the tiny town for parts unknown. Hal, who blames Gabe’s grandstanding for Sarah’s death, receives a frantic CB call for help at their rescue outpost. Jessie encourages Gabe to aid in the expedition. However, once atop the mountain, tempers flare and Hal narrowly resists tossing Gabe over the side. Unfortunately for all concerned, the frantic call turns out to be ruse. Gabe and Hal are taken prisoner by the psychotic Eric Qualen (John Lithgow) and his accomplice, Richard Travers (Rex Linn); thieves in search of their three, $100 million US Treasury suitcases that went down with a plane somewhere in the mountains after a botched skyjacking. Locating the first attaché with a beacon transmitter, Qualen orders Gabe to scale a steep ravine to retrieve it. However, once hidden from view, Gabe loosens his tether, planning to escape. Qualen opens fire, causing an avalanche that kills one of his own men, but is presumed to have buried Gabe alive.

From here on, the screenplay by Michael France and Stallone develops along the lines of a very improbable and dangerous game of cat and mouse; Gabe, just a few nimble steps ahead of Qualen and his motley crew of thug muscle. Gabe and Jessie are reunited inside an abandoned log cabin and together they recover the second case. When Qualen and his men arrive, they find the case empty – save a $1,000 bill with the words ‘Want to trade?’ scribbled on the back. In the meantime, Qualen and Travers use Hal as their homing pigeon in a race against time to recover the third case. During one of the many absurd moments in Cliffhanger, Jessie and Gabe burn money from the second case to keep warm while Qualen and his mercenaries spend the night inside an abandoned cabin. The following morning, Qualen hijacks a rescue chopper as Hal leads Travers and the rest of Qualen’s men to the location of the third case. Jessie, who has already signaled the helicopter, is instead taken hostage by Qualen and his men. Using Jessie’s two-way radio, Qualen makes a deal with Gabe to spare her life if Gabe hands over the monies recovered from the third case. Instead, Gabe tosses the bag into the chopper’s rotors, dispersing its contents down the mountain’s steep precipice. The helicopter crashes with Gabe and Qualen dangling from its wreckage – Gabe, disentangling himself at the last possible moment as Qualen plummets to his death. The film ends with Gabe, Hal and Jessie reunited, but trapped atop a narrow peak, awaiting rescue by federal agents.

Cliffhanger is barbarically simplistic entertainment, barely conscious of the factual information it attempts to fictitiously utilize. As example: Qualen’s men have supposedly fled the Denver Mint with three cases of paper money. One problem: the Denver ‘mint’ only manufactures coin currency. So, $300 million in coin would weigh a prohibitive 2500 tons! Though largely panned by both film critics and rock-climbing enthusiasts – particularly for its inaccuracies regarding a ‘bolt gun’, capable of shooting support hooks into the rocky terrain (no such devise exists) – Cliffhanger was, and remains a big hit with movie goers. It went on to earn an impressive $250 million at the box office. Setting aside its ‘out-the-window’ pragmatism (as Hitchcock would say… ‘It’s only a movie’), Sylvester Stallone’s ‘charm’ has always baffled me. Apart from his inauspicious false start in the 1970 skin flick, The Party at Kitty and Stud's (a.k.a. Italian Stallion), Stallone’s early career in ‘legit’ picture-making seemed to herald more promise than it ultimately delivered: Rocky, Paradise Alley (both in 1976), Nighthawks (1981), First Blood (1982) all suggesting there was more to the Stallone image than a squarish mug and lumbering oaf. That movies like Cliffhanger became Stallone’s bread n’ butter was perhaps a foregone conclusion after the actor – taking his cue from Schwarzenegger’s meteoric rise, fast tracked to add girth a la steroids, though hardly charisma, to his limited acting chops.   

Yet, in hindsight the Best Picture Oscar win for Rocky (something of a threadbare revamp of 1931’s The Champ…to be remade again in 1979) just seems curious to downright conciliatory on AMPAS’s part, given its fellow nominees: Network, All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, and, (choke!) Taxi Driver!  Nevertheless, Rocky ought to have been Stallone’s springboard into greatness. Instead, it proved the jumping off point for Stallone’s decade’s long vision quest to transform himself into the perfect ‘muscle head’: the spot, established, and – despite Stallone’s best efforts - held on to by former Mr. Olympia, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Stallone had John Rambo. But even this paled to Schwarzenegger’s mega blockbusters: The Terminator (1984), Commando (1985) and Predator (1987). By 1993, the Graz-born man of muscles had moved on in his aspirations, appearing in light-hearted comedies like Twins (1988) and the ill-fated Last Action Hero (1993); movies that poked fun at his former tougher-than-nails screen persona. By comparison, Stallone was still playing catch-up, retaining the façade of a larger-than-life strong-n’-silent type, in pictures like Cliffhanger. In Cliffhanger, Stallone is a ripened physical specimen, albeit cut from inferior posing trunks. Even though most of the story takes place in frigid alpine conditions, he performs at least half the stunt work stripped down - diversionary eye-candy for any Junior Miss or couch potato still afflicted by the tired old cliché - ‘size matters’.  Given the dreck that would follow it, Cliffhanger is not altogether a waste of time or Stallone’s talents for that matter. It has Renny Harlin’s swift directorial style to recommend it, plus heart-palpating thrills that pile up with such visual ferocity, one can scarcely catch a break or breath.  Yet, despite its popularity since, the picture lacks staying power and is hardly memorable. Perhaps the best that can be said of Cliffhanger today, is that it remains a triumph of style over substance.

Sony Home Entertainment’s 4K Blu-Ray is superb. Recalling, Sony has always been at the forefront of video mastering, this newly incarnated ultra-hi-def image reveals incredibly textured visuals with a few unanticipated shortcomings to be discussed. The natural splendor of the locations really comes across. Close-ups are so life-like you will swear you could reach through the screen and touch actor’s faces. While film grain has been consistently rendered, there are some minor density fluctuations that create fleeting moments of built-in flicker, though only minor distortion. HDR color grading has added luster and sheen to these snow-capped vistas, infrequently startled by the ultra-clarity and richness of the rescue helicopter's blood red metal body coming into view or the intermittent explosion, erupting into fiery oranges and deeply saturated black acrid smoke. Prepare to be impressed, folks. This is why 4K Blu-ray is such a big deal!  Given all the vibrancy, there are still a few shots that just appear unnaturally soft. Opticals are forgivable, but also sacrifice overall clarity, and, look more artificial than ever. Finally, edge halos crop up during high-contrast-lit scenes, making everything momentarily artificial and waxy besides.  

Sony’s Dolby Atmos audio is exhilarating and blows the old DTS 5.1 out of the water, creating an immersive aural experience not to be missed, with tangible swooshing overhead helicopter propeller blades and wind effects. The Foley in actioners like Cliffhanger was made for Dolby Atmos, generating synchronized chaos with each sound effect perfectly nuanced. Gunfire will leave you on the edge of your seat, as will the thunderous boom from the avalanche. Dialogue is expertly placed and Trevor Jones’ heart-pounding orchestral score envelopes on all sides.  This is a reference quality audio presentation. As with virtually all 4K releases, extra features are confined to the standard Blu-ray also included in this package. Everything we get has been ported over from past releases. Regrettably, studios no longer spend coin to produce new content for any disc format. Extras on the Blu-ray only include deleted scenes and featurettes on the special effects, and the making of the movie. There is also a personal introduction by Harlin, an audio commentary by director and his star, storyboard comparisons, a photo gallery and theatrical trailer. Bottom line: if you are a fan of Cliffhanger, this 4K release comes very highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4K Blu-ray 4.5

Blu-ray 3.5

EXTRAS

2