Vertical Limit | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Martin Campbell |
Screenplay by | Robert King Terry Hayes |
Story by | Robert King |
Produced by | Martin Campbell Robert King Marcia Nasatir Lloyd Phillips |
Starring | |
Cinematography | David Tattersall |
Edited by | Thom Noble |
Music by | James Newton Howard |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
|
Running time | 124 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $75 million [1] |
Box office | $215.7 million [2] |
Vertical Limit is a 2000 American survival thriller film directed by Martin Campbell, written by Robert King, and starring Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton, Robin Tunney, and Scott Glenn. The film was released on December 8, 2000, in the United States by Columbia Pictures, receiving mixed reviews and grossed $215 million at the box office.
The film was the third collaboration between Campbell and actor Stuart Wilson, after No Escape (1994) and The Mask of Zorro (1998).
![]() | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.(March 2024) |
While climbing in Monument Valley, siblings Peter and Annie Garrett lose their father Royce after Royce forces Peter to cut him loose after a freak accident. Three years later, Peter has retired from climbing, but Annie has become a renowned climber. Their relationship is strained, as Annie still blames Peter for Royce's death. Peter reunites with Annie at the K2 base camp, where Annie is planning a summit attempt on K2. The expedition is funded by wealthy industrialist Elliot Vaughn. Their team includes Annie, Vaughn, renowned climber Tom McLaren, mountaineer Ali Nazir, and one other.
The night before the climb, Vaughn throws a party. The gala is interrupted by reclusive Montgomery Wick, reportedly the foremost K2 expert, who verbally challenges Vaughn. It's later revealed that Wick's wife, an expedition guide, died during Vaughn's previous expedition. Vaughn claims they were hit by a storm and Wick's wife died of pulmonary edema because her supply of dexamethasone was swept away in the storm. Wick has never believed that story and has spent years trying to find his wife's body. Back in the present day, Vaughn forces McLaren to continue despite a radio warning from base camp of an approaching storm.
During an avalanche, Annie, Vaughn, and McLaren become trapped in a crevasse, while the other two people in their group are killed. Radio contact is lost, but Peter hears Annie using static and Morse code to signal that they are alive. Peter assembles a rescue team, which includes Wick. Pairs are assigned, and after a treacherous helicopter drop-off, each pair takes a different path to increase chances of success. Each pair carries a canister of explosive nitroglycerine donated by the Pakistani army to clear the entrance to the crevasse.
Monique and Cyril experience a harrowing incident after Cyril loses his balance at the edge of a cliff. While Monique attempts to rescue him their nitro canister falls over the cliff and explodes, causing another avalanche. Monique survives, but Cyril does not. At the military station, the nitroglycerine canisters are exposed to sunlight and explode. Base camp tells the team to get their cases of nitro into the shade. Kareem and Malcolm do so, but their canister leaks fluid into the sunlight, causing another explosion that kills them. Underground, McLaren is severely injured and has lost his dexamethasone. Annie shares her dexamethasone with him, but Vaughn refuses it. Annie risks her life to reach Ali's backpack and manages to obtain more dexamethasone, but Vaughn says that since McLaren is unlikely to survive, he and Annie should keep the dexamethasone for themselves.
The explosions have shaken loose some ice, and Wick finally discovers his wife's body. The empty dexamethasone container nearby suggests that Vaughn lied and stole her dexamethasone, ensuring his own survival while leaving Wick's wife to die.
Monique, Peter and Wick camp for the night. Peter is wary of Wick, who seems more intent on taking revenge than in rescuing the survivors. In the crevasse, Annie falls asleep, and Vaughn kills McLaren with a syringe full of air to avoid having to give McLaren more dexamethasone. Wick awakens to find that Peter and Monique have left him. Annie and Vaughn manage to mark the crevasse entrance by detonating a flare inside a bag of McLaren's blood which explodes over the snow. Peter and Monique see the marker and use nitro to blast a hole, enabling access to the survivors. They drop a rope, and Vaughn harnesses Annie.
Wick descends into the cave, and although Vaughn thinks Wick will attack him, Wick attaches a clip to Vaughn. Monique and Peter attempt to pull Annie out of the crevasse, but an ice boulder falls, knocking Wick and Vaughn from the ledge in the crevasse, and pulling Annie and Peter down, creating a scenario similar to the opening scene: Monique alone remains on the ledge holding the rope from which the other four are dangling. To save Annie and Peter, and to fulfill his desire for revenge against Vaughn, Wick cuts the rope and he and Vaughn fall to their deaths.
Recovering at base camp, Annie reconciles with Peter, who then pays his respects at a makeshift memorial for climbers who have died.
Vertical Limit was filmed on location in Pakistan (location of K2), Queenstown, New Zealand and the United States.[ citation needed ]
Bell 212 helicopters contracted from Hevilift Australia were painted in a khaki green colour to represent the Pakistani Army.
Vertical Limit grossed $69.2 million domestically and $215.7 million worldwide, becoming the 17th-highest-grossing film of 2000. Against a budget of $75 million, the film was a success.
In the United States, the film opened at No. 1 during its opening day, December 8, earning an estimated $5.1 million, overtaking How the Grinch Stole Christmas , which had stayed since November 17. On its opening weekend, the film finished second at the box office, with $15.5 million. [4]
Vertical Limit received mixed reviews from critics, as the film holds a 48% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 110 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "The plot in Vertical Limit is ludicrously contrived and clichéd. Meanwhile, the action sequences are so over-the-top and piled one on top of another, they lessen the impact on the viewer". [5] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [6] The movie has the rating of on Allmovie.com. [7] According to free-soloing legend Alex Honnold, the unrealistic opening scene is "horrendous and probably the worst scene in all of Hollywood climbing". [8]
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, commenting, "It's made from obvious formulas and pulp novel conflicts, but strongly acted and well crafted... "Vertical Limit" delivers with efficiency and craft, and there are times, when the characters are dangling over a drop of a mile, when we don't even mind how it's manipulating us." [9] James DiGiovanna of Tucson Weekly Vertical Limit, the best mountain-climbing movie starring Chris O'Donnell to come out this week." [10] Philip French of The Guardian mentioned, "Campbell sustains the tension pretty well and the settings are spectacular. More interesting than the characters, however, are two aspects of the dramatic background. The first is an isolated army post on a mountain peak from which ill-equipped Pakistani soldiers fire an artillery barrage every afternoon in the direction of India as an absurd daily ritual. [11] David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, ""Vertical Limit" produces a decidedly split reaction in an audience. You gasp at the action sequences, then giggle at the drama, then gasp, then giggle until finally the filmmakers pile on one cliffhanger too many. By that point, the gasps have become muted by sheer disbelief... Alternately generating adrenaline and ennui, "Vertical Limit" battles itself to a hard-earned draw." [12]
A novelization of the film was released in paperback in 2000 written with the assistance of the screenplay authors. [13]
K2, at 8,611 metres (28,251 ft) above sea level, is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest at 8,849 metres (29,032 ft). It lies in the Karakoram range, partially in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and partially in the China-administered Trans-Karakoram Tract in the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang.
Mount Everest, known locally as Sagarmatha or Qomolangma, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation of 8,848.86 m was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.
The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognized by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) as being more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and at times, the UIAA has considered whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountain peaks by including the major satellite peaks of eight-thousanders. All of the eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits lie in the altitude range known as the death zone.
In mountaineering and climbing, a first ascent, is the first successful documented climb to the top of a mountain or the top of a particular climbing route. Early 20th-century mountaineers and climbers focused on reaching the tops of iconic mountains and climbing routes by whatever means possible, often using considerable amounts of aid climbing, and/or with large expedition style support teams that laid "siege" to the climb.
Anatoli Nikolaevich Boukreev was a Soviet and Kazakh mountaineer who made ascents of 10 of the 14 eight-thousander peaks—those above 8,000 m (26,247 ft)—without supplemental oxygen. From 1989 through 1997, he made 18 successful ascents of peaks above 8,000 m.
Scott Eugene Fischer was an American mountaineer and mountain guide. He was renowned for ascending the world's highest mountains without supplemental oxygen. Fischer and Wally Berg were the first Americans to summit Lhotse, the world's fourth highest peak. Fischer, Charley Mace, and Ed Viesturs summitted K2 without supplemental oxygen. Fischer first climbed Mount Everest in 1994 and later died during the 1996 blizzard on Everest while descending from the peak.
Christopher Eugene O'Donnell is an American actor who performs in film and television.
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a 1997 bestselling nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer. It details Krakauer's experience in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a storm. Krakauer's expedition was led by guide Rob Hall. Other groups were trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants.
Rock climbing is a climbing sports discipline that involves ascending routes consisting of natural rock in an outdoor environment, or on artificial resin climbing walls in a mostly indoor environment. Routes are chronicled in guidebooks, and on online databases, with the details of how to climb the route, and who made the first ascent and the coveted first free ascent. Climbers will try to ascend a route onsight, however, a climber can spend years projecting a route before they make a redpoint ascent.
Nazir Sabir is a Pakistani mountaineer. He was born in Hunza. He has climbed Mount Everest and four of the five 8000 m peaks in Pakistan, including the world's second highest mountain K2 in 1981, Gasherbrum II 8035m, Broad Peak 8050m in 1982, and Gasherbrum I 8068m in 1992. He became the first from Pakistan to have climbed Everest on 17 May 2000 as a team member on the Mountain Madness Everest Expedition led by Christine Boskoff from the United States that also included famed Everest climber Peter Habeler of Austria and eight Canadians.
Edmund Viesturs is an American high-altitude mountaineer, corporate speaker, and well known author in the mountain climbing community. He was the first American to climb all 14 of the eight-thousander mountains, and the 5th person to do so without supplemental oxygen. Along with Apa Sherpa, he has summitted eight-thousanders on 21 occasions, including Mount Everest seven times.
Tommy Caldwell is an American rock climber who has set records in sport climbing, traditional climbing, and in big-wall climbing. Caldwell made the first free ascents of several major routes on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
Alison Jane Hargreaves was a British mountaineer. Her accomplishments included scaling Mount Everest alone, without supplementary oxygen or support from a Sherpa team, in 1995. She soloed all the great north faces of the Alps in a single season—a first for any climber. This feat included climbing the difficult north face of the Eiger in the Alps. Hargreaves also climbed 6,812-metre (22,349 ft) Ama Dablam in Nepal.
The Eiger Sanction is a 1975 American action film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Based on the 1972 novel The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian, the film is about Jonathan Hemlock, an art history professor, mountain climber, and former assassin once employed by a secret government agency, who is blackmailed into returning to his deadly profession for one last mission.
David Sharp was an English mountaineer who died near the summit of Mount Everest. His death caused controversy and debate because he was passed by several other climbers heading to and returning from the summit as he was dying, although several others tried to help him.
The Piolets d'Or is an annual mountaineering and alpine climbing award organized by the Groupe de Haute Montagne (GHM), and previously with co-founder Montagnes Magazine, since its founding in 1992. Golden ice axes are presented to the annual winners at a weekend awards festival based on their achievements in the previous year. It is considered mountaineering's highest honor and is referred to as the "Oscars of mountaineering".
The 2008 K2 disaster occurred on 1 August 2008, when 11 mountaineers from international expeditions died on K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth. Three others were seriously injured. The series of deaths, over the course of the Friday ascent and Saturday descent, was the worst single accident in the history of K2 mountaineering. Some of the specific details remain uncertain, with different plausible scenarios having been given about different climbers' timing and actions, when reported later via survivors' eyewitness accounts or via radio communications of climbers who died later in the course of events on K2 that day.
Free Solo is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin that profiles rock climber Alex Honnold on his quest to perform the first-ever free solo climb of a route on El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park in California, in June 2017.
The 1938 American Karakoram expedition to K2, more properly called the "First American Karakoram expedition", investigated several routes for reaching the summit of K2, an unclimbed mountain at 28,251 feet (8,611 m) the second highest mountain in the world. Charlie Houston was the leader of what was a small and happily united climbing party. After deciding the Abruzzi Ridge was most favorable, they made good progress up to the head of the ridge at 24,700 feet (7,500 m) on July 19, 1938. However, by then their supply lines were very extended, they were short of food and the monsoon seemed imminent. It was decided that Houston and Paul Petzoldt would make the last push to get as close to the summit as they could and then rejoin the rest of the party in descent. On July 21 the pair reached about 26,000 feet (7,900 m). In favorable weather, they were able to identify a suitable site for a higher camp and a clear route to the summit.