True, there's not a moment in the plot that I could believe.
That didn't bother me for an instant. "Cliffhanger" is a device to entertain us, and it works, especially during those moments when Stallone is hanging by his fingernails over a three-mile fall, and the bad guys are stomping on him.
The movie begins with a clever mid-air theft and crash-landing: sort of a cross between "The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper" and "Alive!" A gang of expert criminals, led by John Lithgow, hijacks a U.S. Treasury plane carrying millions of dollars in large bills.
Their cockeyed plan is to transfer the money to another plane, and indeed one of the crooks transfers from one plane to another on a wire rope. This feat, which was actually performed by a stunt man, is one of the movie's most breathtaking moments.
But then the plan goes wrong, there is a crash, and Lithgow and his partners find themselves stranded on top of a snow-covered mountain, with all of the cash but no way to get down. So they send out a phony distress signal, which is picked up by Stallone and another rescue man, played by Michael Rooker.
That sets up the main thread of the plot, as the crooks and the good guys chase each other over the mountainside and through a series of bluffs, showdowns and fights to the finish, all taking place on the edge of suitably vertiginous precipices.
The movie adds a back-story involving Stallone and Rooker, which sets up some quarrels on the mountainside. During an opening sequence, Rooker unwisely takes his new girlfriend on a difficult climb, and when she gets into a tough spot Stallone tries to rescue her, with unfortunate results (she screams all the way down). Did Stallone do the right thing, or was his judgment hasty? He and Rooker have it out, while meanwhile trying to deal with the skyjackers.
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