Cliffhanger - Doesn’t actually end of a ‘cliffhanger’ but not to worry

Sylvester Stallone sort of fell out of favour at the Box Office (just slightly before Arnold Schwarzenegger did), so many see ‘Cliffhanger’ as a kind of ‘come back’ film.  To be fair... it did produce Stallone’s best returns in terms of revenue at the Box Office.  It may not have the ‘cult appeal’ of Rambo, but it’s still pretty good if you’re into a solid little action film.

As with the best films (and certainly the action-orientated ones) the plot is simple – a gang of bank robbers lose their loot while flying over an American mountain range.  To get it back they kidnap the only man capable of scaling the treacherous terrain and try to force him to recover it for them.  Unfortunately, the only man is Sly, and he’s not going to make it easy for them.

So, as many people have commented, it’s basically ‘Die Hard in the snow.’ And that’s a fair appraisal of the film, but, seeing as Die Hard was a classic, there are worse films to be based on.  Plus Sly adds a natural A-list quality to the proceedings, making sure that no one ever thinks that this is nothing more than a glorified B-Movie.  Plus you have John Lithgow (sporting a pretty decent British accent for some reason) as the head bank robber, who displays the menace that would also be present in later series of Dexter.

It’s a simple enough action film.  It has all the thrills, kills and set-pieces that you’d expect from any action film that has been given a decent budget (and this one definitely has!).  You don’t really need to pay an awful lot of attention to the plot to enjoy it, just be in the mood for some harmless (well, not for the bank robbers anyway) fun and watch Sly do what he does best – kicking bad-guys’ asses.

Bonus points of having Michael Rooker (now better known as ‘Merl’ in The Walking Dead) as a good guy for a change!

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that