The Best Die Hard Rip-Off Is One You've Never Seen
Sylvester Stallone's Cliffhanger offered a great twist on the Die Hard formula.
John McTiernan's Die Hard pretty much redefined the modern action blockbuster when it released in 1988. Sleek, suspenseful, and thoroughly human, the film launched Bruce Willis' action career and subverted the expectation of what the stars of that genre should look like.
Willis, who at that point had thinning hair and a lean physique, made for an interesting contrast to the then action kings: Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, both honed athletes whose films saw them cleaving heads with swords and taking Vietnam at the barrel of an M60. Together with the Shane Black-scripted Lethal Weapon, directed by Richard Donner, Die Hard ushered in a new kind of genre blockbuster, where heroes were vulnerable again, and getting your ass kicked was, in some ways, just as cool as being the ass-kicker.
Aspects of the Die Hard formula weren't alien to Sly and Arnie, of course. Even in the Survivor-scored antics of Rocky IV, where Stallone's Italian Stallion went up against Dolph Lundgren's machine-engineered supervillain Ivan Drago, Rocky got beaten up and bruised. He was by this point a shadow of his vulnerable, working class roots - a reflection of eighties excess and MTV aesthetics just like the Tony Scott-directed Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop 2 - but Rocky still got beaten up. He still hurt, even if he showed less battle damage than he used to.
The same was true of Schwarzenegger, who, in the nineties, arguably illustrated a better grasp of his action persona than his one-time rival. Predator, which released a year before Die Hard in 1987 and was also directed by McTiernan, was arguably just as subversive, assembling a group of immaculate badasses only to have them be torn apart by an alien slasher villain.
Arnie's (unfairly) unheralded period in the early nineties reiterated his grasp on his screen and Hollywood personality, exemplified in the criminally underrated Last Action Hero (McTiernan again). This career adjustment for Schwarzenegger was defined by comedy and more light-hearted efforts, and it would take years and a governorship later until he starred in a film made in the Die Hard mould - 2013's The Last Stand, where he portrays a sheriff who battles outlaws in a small town.
Stallone - who suffered a greater fallow period than his rival in the nineties - wouldn't wait as long to take a stab at the Die Hard formula. However, when he did, he arguably did it best, firmly placing his own spin on the Die Hard scenario by leaning into - rather than shying away from - his athletic physique and screen persona. I am, of course, talking about Cliffhanger, which has recently just turned 30.
Why Cliffhanger Is The Best Die Hard Copycat
The 1990s saw a boatload of Die Hard imitators but only a few that really did the premise justice - the 1995 Jean-Claude Van Damme actioner Sudden Death (Die Hard in an ice hockey stadium), and Jan de Bont's Keanu Reeves-led Speed the two most notable.
However, despite my love for the Muscles from Brussels and Theodore Logan himself, the Renny Harlin-directed Cliffhanger has always stood out as the best of the bunch - an adrenaline-fuelled, vertigo-laden vehicle for Sly to flex his muscles while pivoting into an era where it wasn't enough for action heroes to win anymore - they had to have their struggles too. It's a unique, glistening gem from Stallone's most forgettable decade, sandwiched awkwardly between the nadir of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, and the charming but flawed Demolition Man.
As far as Die Hard copycats go Cliffhanger hasn't been largely forgotten, but coming in an era where Stallone was on a downward trajectory and all the Die Hard sequels themselves were still really strong, it'd be understandable if folks had missed it. However, those lucky enough to go see Cliffhanger (and plenty did at the time - it grossed $255 million at the box office) will be treated to a thrilling spin on the Die Hard formula, with Stallone playing an expert mountain rescuer forced to do battle with an insidious former British intelligence officer attempting to steal from the US treasury.
Cliffhanger is most noteworthy for its impeccable and brutal opening, as well as for featuring the most expensive aerial stunt of all time, which involved stuntman Simon Crane moving between two planes at high altitude (he was reportedly paid $1 million for accomplishing the feat). But the whole package itself is great, illustrating not only the brilliance of Sly, but also director Renny Harlin, whose other nineties action highlights include Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Cliffhanger's Real Villains Are The Rockies Themselves
Released in 1993 after several failed attempts from Carolco Pictures to get a new Stallone action film off the ground, including one that was billed as "Die Hard in a hurricane", Cliffhanger stars Sly as mountain ranger Gabriel Walker.
We are introduced to Gabe as a happy, outgoing and confident climber, trading banter with both his partner Jessie (Janine Turner) and his friends who they're going up to rescue (Hal and his girlfriend Sarah, played by Michael Rooker and Michelle Joyner respectively).
However, the rescue does not go according to plan. Gabe's equipment fails while retrieving Sarah, which causes her to fall to her death. This tense and indeed ruthless introduction sets the stage perfectly for the rest of Cliffhanger's runtime; the naked fear of its high-altitude set-pieces have been established, and now Gabe - thrust into an extraordinary situation - has to call upon the skills he hung up long ago in order to save the day.
Said extraordinary situation comes as a result of Eric Qualen - a former UK intelligence agent turned criminal played by John Lithgow - having his robbery plans upended and getting stranded in the Colorado Rockies. The mountains serve as Cliffhanger's Nakatomi Plaza, only, instead of air vents and leaps across elevator shafts, we have death-defying jumps and swings across mountain peaks and valleys.
There's plenty of gunfire too, but the real threat in Cliffhanger is the elements themselves. Harlin is perfectly adept in shooting firefights, but firearms take a back seat to the more impressive and dangerous vistas of America's iconic western mountain range, with nasty, close-quarters fights and explosive set-pieces forming the other points of the film's action pyramid.
Cliffhanger's Fight Scenes Are Brutal & Explosive
The first of these big set-pieces is Qualen's heist, which involves the aforementioned aerial transfer that got Cliffhanger its record-breaking moment. Michael France and Stallone's script does an excellent job of messing with expectations here, positioning a newly transferred FBI agent (Vyto Ruginis) as the likely traitor in collusion with the film's soon-to-be-revealed villains.
However, it transpires that Travers (Rex Linn), along with one of the pilots, is the real turncoat. After seemingly murdering everyone on board, we're treated to the great transfer scene itself, but this is then followed up by Ruginis' FBI guy recovering from his wounds, getting up, and then single-handedly ruining his killers' day by firing an Uzi and causing the plane to crash-land. This leads to the stolen money getting scattered across the mountains, as well as to Gabe and his old friend Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker) being held at gunpoint to guide the crooks around - albeit fully aware that the moment they outlive their usefulness, they're likely to die.
Much like its protagonists precariously navigate the mountaintops, a core element of Cliffhanger's success is how well it balances its unsuspecting mean streak with more traditional eighties action camp. Fights are brutal and bloody, and innocent bystanders are deliberately bumped off by Qualen's crew.
At the same time, Lithgow's performance as Qualen lives up to every English villain stereotype in the book. When he's not needling his men for making mistakes, he's punctuating their evil with diabolically snappy one-liners. This can sometimes jar with how committed Rooker and Stallone are with their respective performances - as if Qualen and his men have taken a magic ticket to a different movie - but it's a balancing act Cliffhanger (mostly) manages to pull off.
Cliffhanger Is Beautiful, Thrilling, & Fully Stallone
And it is truly thrilling to watch. Harlin and cinematographer Alex Thompson capture the Rockies in all their crystal beauty and icy terror, always intimating the scale of the adventure and the danger around every corner. Both sides of the Rockies are captured perfectly, whether it's the vibrant red of the rescue helicopter contrasting with the serene, glacial backdrop of the mountains, or Gabe and Janine making a risky ascent. Thomson's compositions convey both momentum and tranquility, and make Cliffhanger one of Stallone's best-looking movies - certainly up there with Bill Butler's work on Rocky IV and Ric Waite on Cobra.
Of course, at the end of it all, integral to Cliffhanger's success is Sylvester Stallone. From his contributions to the script to his performance as Gabe, Cliffhanger works because it channels what's great about Sly in a way some of his later efforts from the eighties failed to.
Part of that, I think, can be attributed to Die Hard's influence; John McClane endearing himself the way he did helped usher in a new wave of flawed action heroes. Rather than change tack entirely though, through Cliffhanger, Stallone channelled the strengths he'd developed as an action star over the previous decade while also leaning into the sorrowful undercurrent of his formative performances.
Stallone's physicality and athleticism are just as essential as his ability to sell Gabe's trauma and triumph. This is what makes the character such a great role and Cliffhanger such a well-constructed piece of cinema. It is indebted to Die Hard in many ways, but it is - almost defiantly - a Stallone movie to the end.