My movie for the third week of August was another one that I know I had seen as a kid with my dad. I’m pretty sure he had a copy on VHS back then. Cliffhanger (1993), an action packed, over the (mountain) top film. 

This line in the opening credits is one of the best things I’ve ever seen in a movie: “Based on a Premise by John Long” Aren’t all movies that aren’t based on true stories or adaptations just based on exactly that? What an odd opening credit to feature in your movie…

The film’s plot is rather basic, but for an early 90s action flick, it’s just good enough. Gabe (Portrayed by friend of the blog, Sylvester Stallone) is a mountain climbing rescue ranger in the mountains of Colorado. The film opens up with his friend and lover dying in a training exercise, so of course he disappears for a period of time to brood over it. 

Meanwhile, there is a cash transfer from the US Treasury taking place, and Richard Travers (Rex Linn) is the guy inside who is going to help fake a plane crash to steal the money alongside Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), who portrays a posh British criminal. His accent is absurd from the second he first speaks in this film, and it really adds to the enjoyment of this movie.

They (mostly) successfully stage the robbery, but they also mess up their own plane in the process, so they have to crash land. The shot for this was great, and after researching how it was done, I learned that they used real planes and actually did the damn stunt. Stallone reduced his salary for the sake of the movie since no insurance companies would insure these stunts. Sub 90 below zero and crawling across a real rope between two moving planes. What an insane feat. That alone makes this movie worth watching. The plane crash itself was a mix of live shots and miniatures, but for a movie from 33 years ago, it looks amazingly well done to this day. 

Back to the plot summary… Right as Gabe decides he’s ready to come back, he goes to his friend Jessie’s (Janine Turner) house. Of course they have the classic conversation that always happens when the hero returns from self exile. This movie is fun, and good, but nothing we haven’t seen before to be honest. And, of course, as he’s at her house having this conversation, they hear over the radio about the plane crash that just occurred. Travers and Qualen lie on the radios and say they need rescue, fully planning to kill whoever finds them and steal the rescue helicopter.

Obviously, none of this goes to plan. And there’s another issue: the briefcase full of cash fell out of the plane as it crashed and they now need to hunt it down.

The rest of the movie is a tense climbing adventure in the snowy mountains of Colorado. This is a movie that has a star studded cast, and knows exactly what it is about. It’s unapologetically over the top in every way, which makes it so enjoyable. Most action films are groan inducing when the characters survive impossible situations, while others are dropping left and right for lesser wounds and altercations. Cliffhanger is very guilty of this, but leans into it so hard that it begins to not phase the viewer after a while. It’s not asking you to believe everything you see happening on screen, but to strap in, and enjoy the ride that it is offering. 

My favorite scene in the entire movie is when Gabe and Jessie are on the run, trying to get to the other briefcase of money before Qualen can. (At this point, Gabe has burned all the money from the first one.) If memory serves, Gabe has already been shot in the side at this point, has been limping, almost frozen to death, just everything on top of everything happening. Yet he’s still the macho man main character in an action movie, so all of this has barely phased him. One of the bad guys, Kynette (Leon) finds out where they are and jumps down from a hole at the top of the cave to have an altercation with Gabe. Gabe is doing his best to protect Jessie, while wrestling a gun from Kynette, and Kynette is sucker punching Gabe left and right. It’s not looking good for Gabe. He’s on his knees, out of breath, holding his side. In true 80s/90s action film fashion, Kynette is quite literally charging up a punch to ‘seal the deal’ and knock Gabe out. While this tense scene is happening, the camera cuts, and Gabe grabs Kynette by the crotch, lifts him above his head, and pierces him on a stalactite hanging from the cave. This scene blew my mind. It might be my single favorite scene in any action movie ever. I was dying laughing and amazed at the same time. 

Of course, more cat and mouse action sequences occur, and then the ultimate showdown at the end between Gabe and Qualen takes place. This involves Gabe quite literally throwing Qualen’s helicopter off of a cliff. Then they have a fistfight on the bottom of the upside-down helicopter as it hangs cliffside. This all ends with Gabe grabbing a rope ladder affixed to the side of the cliff and finally the helicopter falls down and explodes, and Qualen dies.

Then the movie ends. This kind of upset me. I mean, we know the “what happens after”. There’s not a ton to resolve, but unlike the ending of Running Man (1987), we don’t get to see Stallone kiss the girl. It still felt like a very abrupt cut to credits. Not 20 seconds after Gabe drops the helicopter off the cliff do we see him atop the cliff with Jessie and Hal and it ends. I think also, as I’ve stated before, I am a person that likes to sit with the credits. Growing up, going to the theater with my dad, we would sit through most, if not all of the credits after seeing something. I cannot stand streaming services that play something from your “recommended” list within 5 seconds of the movie ending. I have yet to find a way to turn that feature off on every service…

Anyways, I think that Cliffhanger is overall an absurdly enjoyable film, heck, I’ll even go as far as to say it is a good film, since it sets out to accomplish exactly what it accomplishes. It knows what it is, and that only helps it. I would recommend this movie to anyone looking for a fun movie to watch at home. 

-3.5 mallards /5

-Seann

Ken Park (2002) is the most questionable movie that has been randomly selected for us so far. When you Google this movie, one of the questions under the “people also ask” section is ‘is Ken Park legal to watch?’ It also does not have an MPAA rating, meaning it was never shown in theaters, and also is not available on any major streaming service. I had to watch this movie on a hosting website called “effedupmovies”, which was honestly an appropriate home for this film.

My mind was blown in the first few minutes when the credits were shown, and I was made aware that the screenplay was written by Harmony Korine, famous for Gummo (1997) and also the smash hit theatrical release Spring Breakers (2012). Korine is known as a transgressive, someone who goes beyond the usual themes and images shown on the silver screen, and experiments with taboos and aesthetics that are outside of the mainstream and push the boundaries of acceptable behavior. I would say Ken Park (2002) definitely stretches the definition of what a movie can be, and blurs the line between film and pornography.

This movie is undoubtedly shot incredibly well. There’s a low-fidelity quality to it that emulates it being shot on a Super 8, if it was not shot on the actual real deal Super 8 itself. It has a very nostalgic quality, not just because of the yellow-ish tint to the scenes, but because of the sets themselves. It’s set in a city in California, and centers around a group of teenage skaters, and the cinematography instantly puts the viewer into that frame of mind. Writing as someone who was, in fact, a teenage skater (though not in California), this movie really reminded me of my mid-teenage years, though I luckily didn’t face any of the challenges these kids face. My challenges were, like many, just trying to fit in and get girls to like me (I never did fit in, and they never did like me).

Moving on, there are some very positive aspects of this film beyond the nostalgic atmosphere of it. The script is very understated, extremely human, and despite the subject matter, also somewhat funny. I did find myself laughing a couple times, and then reminding myself “wait this isn’t funny” due to the situations being shown. I think this made the film much more “real” in many ways. Real life is often difficult, messy, soul-suckingly boring, or otherwise depressing, but despite this we can often find humor and friendship and camaraderie in the most unusual of places. What this film is really about is the indomitability of the human spirit and the freedom of youth, which is extremely odd to write when one considers that the very first scene of the film is a depiction of suicide.

I suppose I should clarify a point earlier, specifically whether this movie is legal to view. It definitely is legal to view in the United States, but there is a bit of a grey area. There is extreme nudity and on-screen intercourse amongst teens. I did not know this going in, so it was a bit of a shock (especially since I watched this with my girlfriend…), and I was a bit taken aback the first time it happened. I should have realized when it was impossible to find this on any legitimate streaming service that something was up. In addition there’s depictions of sexual assault, pedophilia, and extreme physical violence. Like I said, it’s hard to determine where the line is between pornography and filmmaking, and I think this film just baaarreelllyyy stays on the “film” side, though it does at times cross its toes into the other side. Some of the sex scenes go on for an awkwardly long amount of time, and I would be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that it was trying to reach a 90 minute run-time, however there’s no reason to meet such a runtime, because again this was never shown in theaters or intended for a large audience.

I feel another saving grace for this movie is that there is a plot. Adult videos often implement “plot”, there’s many internet memes around this, but Ken Park (2002) does actually have a plot with events that transpire, a beginning, middle, and ending (open to interpretation though it may be). There are also scenes that happens, I would be willing to say at least half of them, that do not feature any sort of nudity. There’s character development, the stories of the characters intersect, etc. If you take the graphic scenes out of the movie, and have them happen behind closed doors or imply what’s going on, the runtime would obviously shrink, but I don’t think any of the story would be lost. As mentioned previously, there’s also an artistic element to this film that elevates it beyond simply pornography. There is a clear attempt at framing, set design, cinematography, and mise-en-scene that is intentional and transcends mere props.

Rating this movie using our usual scale is very difficult for me. I’m going to give this movie a 2.5 mallards/5, but don’t take that at face value. 2.5 would imply that this is an average movie. For a small look behind the curtain, my personal rating philosophy is that each movie starts at a 2.5 (the Platonic ideal of an ‘average movie’), and then gets extra mallards for going beyond the average, or loses points for being worse in some way than the average. This movie is NOT the average movie. I would like to stress this now – if you usually watch the films after reading our reviews, please consider whether your sensibilities will be damaged from watching this. I’m not going to do a formal trigger warning, but if you do decide to watch this movie, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, ESPECIALLY if you’re watching this with someone else – make sure it’s someone with whom you are very comfortable.

Ken Park (2002) has a rating of 5.8 out of 10 on IMDB, a Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer score of 50%, and a Letterboxd score of 2.9 out of 5. I think this movie is likely extremely polarizing – either you can appreciate the artistry, intention, and nostalgia of this film, or you think it’s smut and pointless. Honestly, either viewpoint is reasonable, and therefore it’s difficult to give this a rating.

-2.5 mallards /5

-Maxwell