Got 95% from rottentomatoes.com, my favorite movie review site (actually a composite of many reviews, with links).

This is the first movie about mountain climbing that finally gets it right.  Pathetically inaccurate movies like "Vertical Limit" and "Cliffhanger" have been the norm until now.  The fact that it is a documentary about a true story is of course a big part of the reason for this.  The Oscar-winning director (Kevin McDonald, who won the "Best Documentary Feature Oscar three years ago for "One Day in September", about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972) really wanted to show climbing realistically, and went to great lengths to do so.  He succeeded.

The story is gripping, and as many critics have pointed out, you don't have to have any interest in climbing whatsoever to find it compelling moviemaking.  All you have to have is an interest in people and human nature.

Last week it won the British equivalent to the Oscars for best British film of the year, beatng out all the nondocumentary, "movie star" films that usually win.



-- Modified on 2/22/2004 9:25:38 AM

-- Modified on 2/22/2004 9:28:36 AM