Vertical Limit (2000)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Martin Campbell

Writers (WGA):

Robert King (story)
Robert King (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 December 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Thriller

Tagline:

This December. Fear will Fall. Courage will Rise.

Plot:

A climber must rescue his sister on top of K2, one of the world's biggest mountains.

Plot Keywords:

Rescue | K2 | Death | Parricide | Urination Scene

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 3 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Sun. July 12

9:00 AM

MAX

Cast

Chris O'Donnell	...	Peter Garrett
Robin Tunney	...	Annie Garrett
Stuart Wilson	...	Royce Garrett
Augie Davis	...	Aziz
Temuera Morrison	...	Major Rasul
Roshan Seth	...	Colonel Amir Salim
Alejandro Valdes-Rochin	...	Sergeant Asim
Nicholas Lea	...	Tom McLaren
Rod Brown	...	Ali Hasan
Scott Glenn	...	Montgomery Wick
Steve Le Marquand	...	Cyril Bench (as Steve le Marquand)
Ben Mendelsohn	...	Malcolm Bench
Izabella Scorupco	...	Monique Aubertine
Bill Paxton	...	Elliot Vaughn
Ed Viesturs	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Vertical Limit (Germany)
Vertical Limit - In größter Gefahr (Germany) (TV title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense life/death situations and brief strong language.

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English | Urdu

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 | Philippines:PG-13 | Brazil:12 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Denmark:15 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIB | Hungary:14 | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:M | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Singapore:PG | Spain:7 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

K2, Karakoram Mountain Range, Pakistan

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Montgomery Wick's name is an obvious reference to Thomas Montgomerie and Jim Wickwire. Montgomerie discovered K2, and Jim Wickwire was the first American to climb K2. Wickwire also lost several toes on the mountain, similar to the character Montgomery Wick.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In all of the scenes with the trapped climbers, not once is their breath visible. Cold weather does not always make breath visible, particularly on film.

Quotes:

Tom McLaren: Are you going to kill me now?
Elliot Vaugh: Yes.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "HBO First Look: Surviving 'Vertical Limit' (#7.22)" (2000)

Soundtrack:

Take It To The Limit

There's no limit to mountaineering melodramatics

While mountaineering is one of the most exhilarating of sports it has produced little good fiction, and few good fictional movies, though there have been some excellent documentaries ('The Man who Skied Down Everest', the Imax 'Everest' film, for example). Somehow, when it comes to fiction, the clichés take over, and this film, with some genuinely gorgeous camera-work and impressive stunts, is full of them. The wealthy megalomaniac determined to conquer K2 at any cost, the climber who lost his nerve when his father was killed who pushes himself into action to save his sister, stuck in a crevass high up the mountain with the moneyed one, the bitter old man of the mountains who is essential to the rescue, the guide who has sold out, It's all there. One does expect some improbability of plot in a film like this, but the thought that someone might cart Pakistani Army liquid nitro-glycerine in back packs to the top of K2 to blast a crevasse open really was a bit much.

Apart from a very attractive opening sequence in Utah (Monument Valley, I think) the film was shot in the New Zealand Alps, with a few clips of the genuine Karkoram Himalaya spliced in. For this viewer, it brought back pleasant memories of climbing in the University holidays around the Southern Alps. But climbing is a dangerous sport; on one trip I was accompanied by four people, all of whom subsequently died in separate climbing accidents (one on Makalu, next to Everest). There is a fair amount of special effects malarky (no-one, not even Temuera Morrison pretending to be Pakistani, would fly an old military helicopter so close to a mountain wall at 21,000 feet), but there are also some genuinely stirring shots.

Unfortunately, the acting for the most part matches the script. Chris Connelly, good at sensitive young men, is wrong for the brother bent on rescue (it's more of a part for Bruce Willis), and Bill Paxton is only moderately menacing as the ruthless Richard Branson-style billionaire. In fact the only decent piece of acting is Scott Glenn's Wick, the veteran with attitude. The'comic' Australian climbing brothers, Ces and Cyril, or whatever their names were, were profoundly embarrassing – I guess Ben Mendelsohn will be hoping no-one will recognise him with a balaclava on his head. There were also lackluster performances from the two female leads, Robin Tunney and Izabella Scorupco. One of them, Scorupco, is an ex-Bond girl ('Goldeneye') – the casting people obviously didn't realise she was going to be spending the entire movie wrapped up in Gore-Tex. There's no sex at high altitude – it's too damned cold and anyway survival takes precedence over procreation.

I think Roger Ebert got it right on this one – a 'B' movie with an 'A' movie budget. There are all sorts of anomalies – the lack of visible water vapour issuing from the climbers, their sprightly behaviour even after hours at 26,000 feet, the use of north wall hammers to attack a rock/ice pitch, the miraculous helicopter piloting – but somehow the magnificence of those great peaks comes through. The worst thing about a movie like this is that it portrays the mountains as hellish, which is far from the truth. What is it the psalm says 'I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my strength'? Climbing is one thing I have never regretted doing, and it would be a pity if people were put off the sport by stuff like this. Actually I think the people who do attempt peaks like K2 would see this film as preposterous, overblown Hollywood brown smelly stuff, and they'd be right. But there is some nice scenery.