Cliffhanger (1993)

 

Cliffhanger was nominated for three technical Oscars (Sound, Sound Effects Editing, and Visual Effects) but lost all three of them to the juggernaut that was/is Jurassic Park. The stunt work in Cliffhanger is spectacular, top-notch, but it’s tough to compete with those amazingly realistic-looking dinosaurs. The plot involves the search for $100 million in uncirculated U.S. currency that was stolen from a Treasury Department plane. Sylvester Stallone plays Gabe Walker and Janine Turner (still best known for TV’s Northern Exposure) plays Jessie Dieghan, two rangers who rescue people trapped in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Gabe has taken eight months away from the job after letting a friend, Sarah, slip from his hand during an attempted rescue; the friend’s boyfriend, Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker, who will always be Daryl’s older brother on The Walking Dead to me), blames Gabe, and Gabe has carried the weight of Sarah’s death to the point of wanting to quit his job. Jessie convinces Gabe to join Hal in responding to a distress signal, not realizing that John Lithgow’s Eric Qualen and his band of international thieves want them to find the three cases of money now lost in the mountains after a failed theft attempt and after their own plane has crashed, leaving them stranded with just a honing device to help them find the missing cases. Qualen, working with turncoat U.S. Treasury agent Richard Travers (Rex Linn), and his cohort are very sadistic and easily angered. They always seem ready to kill someone for no significant reason; they even kill Ralph Waite’s Frank, a helicopter pilot who has merely tried to rescue them, and one of a pair of young guys who are just out to ski and jump and have some fun in the mountains. Stallone’s Gabe systematically sabotages the efforts by Qualen’s group to retrieve the money. He makes certain that something goes wrong with each case, and it’s fun to watch so much money get blown up or set on fire or tossed into a helicopter’s blades and shredded. The villains are universally evil and heartless, only interested in getting their money, not matter the human cost that it takes. They’re almost cartoonish in their brutality, but that violence is graphically depicted onscreen. It’s an adventure movie, really, with the money only serving as the maguffin for the plot. It’s the stunt performers who get the most attention. Aside from the scenes of people scaling numerous mountains, Cliffhanger also showcases a transfer of people and the cases of money from one plane to another in midair – well, I should say the attempted transfer of the money since that’s what sets the main portion of the plot in motion. It’s possible that you’ll be able to predict the outcome of the movie by the time you’ve watched the first half (or even third), but that doesn’t detract from the overall impact of the visual effects.

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects