The Best Die Hard Rip-Off Is One You've Never Seen

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.