Vertical Limit

Peter Keough

It's a discussion heard, in one form or another, at holiday dinner tables across America. Three individuals -- a sister, a brother, and their father -- dangle from a rope hundreds of feet above the earth while the piton connecting them to the mesa wall inexorably detaches. "Cut me loose! You're killing your sister!" screams Dad (Stuart Wilson). "Don't do it, Peter!" replies Annie (Robin Tunney). Stuck in the middle, Peter (Chris O'Donnell) hangs paralyzed with terror.

Pass the mashed potatoes, please. The opening of Vertical Limit might be the most jolting of the year, but instead of exploring the pathological dynamics so dramatically depicted there, the film tries to repeat the formula again and again. Years pass and Annie is among those trapped by an avalanche while trying to ascend K2. The long-estranged Peter puts together three teams of climbers equipped with nitroglycerin to rescue her. At this point director Martin Campbell begins to steal shamelessly from Henri-Georges Clouzot's masterpiece Wages of Fear, substituting a frozen mountain for the fetid jungle and well-produced thrills for psychological depth. The "vertical limit" apparently is the altitude at which the body breaks down; in this case the imagination gave up much sooner.