Cast: I wouldn't call it an All-Star cast, but it got a lot of people, a lot of people I recognize, and a lot people who are very good in general. There's Jason Clarke, John Hawkes, Michael Kelly, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Sam Worthington, Robin Wright, and I'll stop there, but there's more. Ok, maybe it is an All-Star cast.
Plot: In 1996, Rob Hall (Clarke) and Scott Fischer (Gyllenhaal) are competing mountain guides, leading groups to summit Mt. Everest, including a journalist (Kelly), a mail man (Hawkes), and a Texan thrill seeker (Brolin). During their summit, a storm comes in and things go very badly.
Thoughts:
I am very familiar with the source material here. Through happenstance, I've read Into Thin Air, which details these events, I've seen the movie, and I've seen the IMAX feature that includes these events. That immediately means there's no surprise to the beats of the story for me (and to be fair, once you know this is a disaster movie, there's no surprise to it anyway). So, that means this all comes down to the execution, which was solid. It does a good job making the Everest climb both treacherous and feasible. There's a human scale to the movie. Despite the comments made by the characters, this doesn't feel like it's on the moon. It's not easy. It's not safe. It's not anywhere that humans should be. But, the characters don't need to be superhuman to be there. I think I that was what I most liked. It wasn't Rolland Emmerich's Everest. It was something more grounded.
That's not to say it lacked for excitement. This was the single deadliest day on Everest for years and a lot of the people involved had interesting stories to tell (Seriously, the Wikipedia page is a good read), which is why I imagine so many actors were interested in being in it. It has all the survival story elements you could want without playing into melodrama.
Jason Clarke is the core character, while people like John Hawkes and Josh Brolin are the emotional center. Gyllenhaal was very lightly used and some people, like Robin Wright I didn't even recognize until I saw the credits. There were certain survivors like Michael Kelly playing John Krakauer who could've painted themselves like heroes and didn't, which I appreciated. The whole cast does a good job, really. Not awards good, but better than a movie like this needs to have.
Elephant in the Room: Where does the blame go? The take on what went wrong is very balanced. Like, surprisingly so. Too many amateurs trying to climb from too many groups. Added pressure due to Krakauer's looming article. The storm. Ropes not being setup beforehand. Over-reliance on Oxygen tanks. Ignoring the turn-around time. Guides not using Oxygen at all for the climb. It spreads blame around to the point that the only blame that can go anywhere is that it's foolish to climb the mountain in the first place.
To Sum Things Up:
This is a good action movie with a good cast. It stays interesting without over-sensationalizing the actual events. It avoids most of the tropes that frustrate me in the genre. While it isn't perfect, it is enjoyable and that's all I wanted from it.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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