Every Christmas, after the ham’s been carved and everyone’s stopped fighting, people all over the world sit down to watch people fight all over again in the iconic festive action film Die Hard.
But we’ve been holding on for dear life this year, flailing without a harness over 2021’s gaping chasm of uncertainty – so I suggest giving John McClane a rest this Friday in favour of a different snowy action flick. Instead, I’m dreaming of a white, muscular, mountainous Christmas, courtesy of the Sylvester Stallone mountain climbing action film Cliffhanger. Sure, it’s not technically set during the holidays – but there is a lot of snow (which according to the giant inflatable snowman on my street still has festive connotations, even in Australia), and it does have some explosive Christmas sentiment. For me, that’s enough.
In Cliffhanger, which is streaming in Australia on Stan, Stallone plays experienced mountain climber Gabe Walker, who actually only walks in one scene. Generally he’s ... hanging, and climbing rocks, really fast. When we meet him, he’s clambering up an intimidating slab of rock to rescue his mate and his mate’s girlfriend Sarah, who has inexplicably carried a small puppy soft toy all the way to the top of a big stone pillar. With its boneless padded body, the puppy looks better equipped than Sarah for what’s about to happen – namely Stallone and his worthless, ripped biceps dropping them down a vast geological expanse, to die at the base of an oversized tombstone.
The traumatised Stallone abandons his grieving friends and girlfriend for a few months, before being lured back by the idea of taking her with him down a shame spiral. Soon though, a bunch of baddies botch a mid-flight heist and he’s roped into tracking down $100m stuffed into suitcases littered across Colorado’s Rocky Mountains – played here by the Italian Alps, which are significantly more expressive than Stallone.
The film is all action. There’s truly excellent stunt work, including a guy climbing along a wire between two planes without a harness (allegedly the most expensive stunt of all time, at US $1m), and Stallone doing one of those classic runs along an exploding rope bridge. There’s also mind-bendingly dumb-but-great fight scenes.
At one point Stallone manages to lift up a baddie and impale him on a blunt stalactite; and at another he goes full Kill Runnings and repeatedly punches one henchman in the head while simultaneously using the man as a bobsleigh. There’s also a really dramatic bat cave scene, which isn’t scary because bats are actually quite cute.
A couple of deaths that raise the stakes are a real bummer – particularly the old mountain rescue guy who likes doing abstract paintings of monkeys (I guess he just likes things that climb good?) and there’s lots of blood-splattered snow. The only reprieve from this ridiculous testosterone avalanche is John Lithgow who, playing the film’s villain Qualen, manages to chew enough snow-covered scenery to give himself brain freeze. As well as being a solid entry to the canon of British-accented evil masterminds, Qualen embodies the same egotistical rich guy disregard for human life displayed in the currently streaming, mountaineering documentaries Free Solo, Mountain and The Summit.
Those films focus on (mostly) dudes, whose lust for conquest and disregard for the awesome power of nature frequently claims their own lives, as well as those of their loved ones and exploited sherpas. In this context, Qualen’s suitcases full of money are metaphors for the folly of spending squillions of dollars to line up and take selfies at the top of big, terrifying hills. Which makes it especially satisfying to watch Stallone blow up Qualen and his luggage.
No Cliffhanger isn’t set at Christmas like Die Hard. But the way Qualen and his henchmen recklessly charge around the mountain looking for big expensive boxes feels analogous to the Christmas shopping rush, which has claimed the lives and sanity of many.
And at the end of the film, after all the suitcases full of money have been destroyed and Stallone has found reconciliation with his old friends and guilt, it’s apparent that all that really matters is holding onto the people you love, rather than dropping them off a cliff. Maybe Cliffhanger is a Christmas film after all.
• Cliffhanger is now streaming in Australia on Stan.
