CLIMB HARD WITH A VENGEANCE.....BQ HANGS OUT WITH "CLIFFHANGER"

Cliffhanger (1993)   No question, the 1990's were the Golden Age of giant, gloriously shlocky imitations of 1988's "Die Hard"..........

                While Michael Bay was still directing music videos in the early 90's, Finnish director Renny Harlin reigned supreme as the ringmaster of mega-budget action shlock-busters, having already directed "Die Hard 2" ( you know.....Die Hard In An Airport)

                   And this one, Die Hard On A Mountain, is one of our favorite Die Hardiest humdingers........

                   Everything you'd want is in place......tortured hero (Sylvester Stallone), haunted by the death of a girl mountain climber he failed to save from a horrifying plummet.......stunning setting, supposedly the Colorado Rockies, but mostly the Dolomites in Cortina, Italy.......and most importantly, a raging, sadistic, vile villain (John Lithgow, with a snide British accent) and his equally hateful team of ultra-violent mercenaries.....

                    You gotta love it.......innocents and villains alike find themselves either shot to pieces, hurled off mountaintops or impaled on stalagmites

                     By the last few minutes, Lithgow's practically foaming at the mouth at the number of times Stallone has thwarted his grand scheme to retrieve suitcases of freshly minted Treasury cash.....he's like a hilarious, live-action version of animation's Wile E. Coyote.......

                    Unlike Michael Bay, the big budget Ed Wood Jr., Renny Harlin knows how to effectively stage and edit spectacular action sequences.   We've come to greatly appreciate Harlin letting these sequences clearly and cleanly unfold, as opposed to Bay's mincemeat editing that renders his movies all but unviewable.....

                 Ultimately the 'Die Hard' formula was beaten into the ground by sheer mindless repetition...........but when it cooked, as it does in 'Cliffhanger', you could treat yourself to a hell of a rollercoaster ride without ever setting foot out of your living room.

                   For a tall summer cooler, BQ says this one climbed to the top of the peaks.....4 stars (****).......they should have played "Climb Ev'ry Mountain' during the credit crawl......