History Film / Cliffhanger

...only to find the distress signal to be a ruse of Eric Qualen (Creator/JohnLithgow), a maniacal terrorist leader leading a CardCarryingVillain band of PsychoForHire mercenaries (which includes a [[RetroactiveRecognition pre]]-''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' Craig Fairbrass) who have just lost $100 million worth of $1,000 bills they hijacked during the crash. Gabe and Tucker are captured and forced to help the terrorists get their ill-gotten money...

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Kynette simply can not believe that Gabe would destroy the money, and believes Gabe to by lying right up until Gabe kills him.

** Also see ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, TheUnfettered and YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness below for more information.

* BigNo: Sarah, as she's falling to her death in the beginning of the film.

* CardCarryingVillain: As stated by Qualen:

* {{Decoy|Protagonist}} {{Deuteragonist}}: [[spoiler:Kind-hearted CoolOldGuy Frank, who spends a good bulk of the movie trying to find Walker, Tucker and Jessie. When finally facing the villains and finding Tucker, instead of simply being taken hostage, he gets mowed down by Delmar and is quickly forgotten, while Qualen steals his helicopter.]]

* DiabolicalMastermind: Eric Qualen.

* EveryHelicopterIsAHuey
* TheEveryman: Gabe and Tucker.

* EvilIsHammy: [[ColdHam Qualen]], Kynette, Delmar and Travers, especially as up to eleven {{Jerkass}}es, see also LargeHam below.

* HateSink: The terrorists' up-to-eleven-wise unlikable [[MoralEventHorizon actions]] and [[{{Jerkass}} attitudes]] tends fall into this to a point of overplaying this trope (it could even be said that they ''overkilled'' this Trope--most of the ReCut footage was done to make them less ''vomit-inducingly monstrous''). Also, outside of their villainy, they are also all completely obnoxious in general. When they first take Tucker and Walker hostage, Kynette forbids Tucker and Walker to talk to each other ("Anytime you want to say something, don't."), refuses to let Walker have his climbing equipment to get to their first case, and takes Walker's jacket away--leaving him vulnerable to the cold--before Qualen finally orders his death.

** Not just Walker but everyone he encounters on the mountain while in captivity. Tucker shows again and again that despite his sour attitude, he's a good person.
* KarmaHoudini: Technically both Tucker and Walker could've been sued, placed under investigation, or had charges pressed against them by Sarah's next-of-kin, for their roles in her untimely death, and although both of them [[LaserGuidedKarma suffered for it]], neither of them received any legal comeuppance.
* KnightOfCerebus: Things get dark when Qualen and his posse show up. Compared to the villains in a lot of other [[DieHardOnAnX Die Hard ripoffs]], who often try to at least be FauxAffablyEvil to TheHero, these guys make no secret that they're a bunch of sadistic psychopathic {{Jerkass}}es who all happily swim around the HateSink. The movie was originally rated NC-17 thanks to their antics, before ExecutiveMeddling forced some of the more out-there moments to be toned down a bit.

* LiteralCliffhanger: [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Several.]]
* MacGuffin: The secure briefcases full of money.
* MadeOfIron: Gabe AND Tucker.
** Matheson, as well. The man becomes entirely responsible for Qualen's predicament by killing two of Qualen's men and crippling Qualen's plane with a machine gun, [[NotQuiteDead all while at death's door from being shot four times in the chest]]. It takes the Treasury plane exploding to finally kill him.

* PluckyComicRelief: Brett and Evan.

* PsychoForHire: All of Qualen's men probably qualify, but Kynette and Delmar are the straightest examples. They're the most openly psychotic and sadistic and both enjoy dragging out their fights just for their own gratification.

* RopeBridge
* SacrificialLamb: Brett.
* SacrificialLion: Matheson and [[spoiler: Frank]].

** And from Qualen: "DAMN YOU WALKER!!"

->''"Hang on."''
-->-- '''{{Tagline}}'''

A 1993 action-adventure film directed by Creator/RennyHarlin and starring Creator/SylvesterStallone.

* WholePlotReference: Other than being a ''Film/DieHard'' on a mountain, the action film also shared similar traits to Creator/WesCraven's horror directorial debut ''Film/TheLastHouseOnTheLeft'' as it involves an AxCrazy HateSink group of criminals (which even includes the token female DarkChick amongst them) find themselves in the wilderness and both films showcased their graphic monstrous atrocities and the villains themselves explicitly meet their ends too as a result by the hands of the heroes. However, the prison transfer break is instead replaced by the botched air-to-air transfer robbery and the villains here are much more heavily armed. Both films even had trouble amongst the ratings system due to their graphic content and had to be ReCut to get the more markable "R" rating. Interestingly enough, the horror film features an early appearance by actor Martin Kove, who acted with this film's star Stallone on ''Film/RamboFirstBloodPartII'', as a deputy and is real life friends with the actor who played the said horror flick's villain David Hess.

** One of the few Stallone films in which ''he'' gets beaten to a helpless pulp. To be fair, his opponent, Kynette is a martial-arts master. And Gabe took him down with a very satisfying GroinAttack.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: At the climax, effete villain John Lithgow (!) proves to be a match for musclebound Sly Stallone.

Gabe Walker (Stallone) was just your friendly everyday mountain rescue worker, happily flying to the rescue in the Rockies with his helicopter-pilot girlfriend Jessie Deighan (Creator/JanineTurner), until his best friend Hal Tucker (Creator/MichaelRooker) [[WhatAnIdiot took his completely untrained girlfriend]] to climb to the summit of a cliff. Of course, this led to her horrifying death hundreds of feet below when the rescue equipment failed to function properly.[[note]] The end credits are careful to point out that the design of her harness was specifically altered for the film.[[/note]] In spite of Gabe's valiant efforts, Tucker [[JerkassWoobie blamed him for the tragedy]]. Gabe, being the good-hearted musclehead that he is, [[ItsAllMyFault took the blame to heart]] and left the mountains in guilt and grief.

* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: Gabe loses some of his climbing equipment when he manages to run away from the thieves (and his jacket was taken away by them when they forced him to fatch the first money case), so he's forced to take replacements from the exhibit display inside of a rest cabin. At one point he even quips about how unsafe it must be to pull off a stunt with the sixty-year-old rope that he snagged from the cabin.

* AngryBlackMan: Kynette, overlapping with ScaryBlackMan.

* MauveShirt: Agent Matheson.
* TheMeanBrit: Delmar and, to a lesser extent, Kristel.
** [[BigBad Qualen]] may be an example, but it's unclear. He has a British accent, but the character is supposed to be a former U.S. intelligence officer and he's played by Creator/JohnLithgow, an American actor.
* TheMole: Agent Travers.

* HairTriggerTemper: Some of the villains are prone to fits of rage, particularly [[VillainousBreakdown Travers]], [[TheMeanBrit Delmar]] and [[ScaryBlackMan Kynette]].

Gabe Walker (Stallone) was just your friendly everyday mountain rescue worker, happily flying to the rescue in the Rockies with his helicopter-pilot girlfriend Jessie Deighan (Janine Turner), until his best friend Hal Tucker (Creator/MichaelRooker) [[WhatAnIdiot took his completely untrained girlfriend]] to climb to the summit of a cliff. Of course, this led to her horrifying death hundreds of feet below when the rescue equipment failed to function properly.[[note]] The end credits are careful to point out that the design of her harness was specifically altered for the film.[[/note]] In spite of Gabe's valiant efforts, Tucker [[JerkassWoobie blamed him for the tragedy]]. Gabe, being the good-hearted musclehead that he is, [[ItsAllMyFault took the blame to heart]] and left the mountains in guilt and grief.

** While planting a C4 booby trap, Qualen comments to her that she'll make a good wife one day, two years earlier Kristel's actress Creator/CarolineGoodall had indeed played a good wife in Creator/StevenSpielberg's family film and unofficial sequel to ''Literature/PeterPan'', ''Film/{{Hook}}'' (which was distributed by Creator/TriStarPictures, who distribute this film as well) as Creator/RobinWilliams' character's wife Moira Banning, [[IronyAsSheIsCast ironic considering the totally opposite kind of character she's playing in this movie]][[invoked]].

* BondOneLiner:
** "Season's over, asshole!"
** "''Remember shithead! Keep your arms and legs in the vehicle '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis At All. Times!]]'''''"

* PreMortemOneLiner: Delmar fights Tucker and announces it like a soccer game; finally, the beaten Tucker is dangling from a cliff with Delmar's shotgun in his face. Tucker manages to stab the sadistic bully of an Englishman in the ankle with Frank's dagger, grab his shotgun while he's distracted by the pain and...

** The fight between Gabe and Kynette has been shortened for the R rated version which misses shots of Gabe and Jessie being beaten further after Kynette asks for the *third* time where the money is (this is missing in the R rated version which leads to a continuity error as he said he would ask three times). The impaling of Kynette has been shortened, in the work print there is more focus on Kynette's eyes going back into his head and Gabe gritting his teeth holding Kynette up on the stalagmite as he is dying before finally dropping him.

* ScaryBlackMan: Kynette is an evil martial-artist who dispassionately guns down a helpless teenage boy for just having ''seen his face''. This lets us cheer when Gabe shoves his evil heart into a stalagmite.
* SceneryPorn

* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: See BondOneLiner and PreMortemOneLiner above.

* EvilIsHammy: [[ColdHam Qualen]], Kynette, Delmar and Travers, especially as UpToEleven {{Jerkass}}es, see also LargeHam below.

* HateSink: The terrorists' UpToEleven-wise unlikable [[MoralEventHorizon actions]] and [[{{Jerkass}} attitudes]] tends fall into this to a point of overplaying this trope (it could even be said that they ''overkilled'' this Trope--most of the ReCut footage was done to make them less ''vomit-inducingly monstrous''). Also, outside of their villainy, they are also all completely obnoxious in general. When they first take Tucker and Walker hostage, Kynette forbids Tucker and Walker to talk to each other ("Anytime you want to say something, don't."), refuses to let Walker have his climbing equipment to get to their first case, and takes Walker's jacket away--leaving him vulnerable to the cold--before Qualen finally orders his death.

* {{Jerkass}}: The terrorists themselves, with Qualen, Travers, Kynette and Delmar being the [[UpToEleven biggest]] {{Jerkass}}es out of the group, while Kristel, Ryan and Heldon, despite having little screen time and characterization, also show some shades of this. They aren't AffablyEvil or FauxAffablyEvil in the least, and routinely threaten and scream at each other.

* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: It quickly becomes obvious that Travers has [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived his usefulness]] as soon as the mercs manage to get the money off the transport plane. To keep himself alive, he points out that the tracking device used to trace the money containers (which have been scattered across the mountain) resets every 15 seconds and requires a rotating series of passcodes to operate, which only he knows.

* TakeMyHand: The movie opens with a scene where the Gabe and Sarah, a fellow climber, are trying to cross a deep ravine to a helicopter using a wire. Sarah's harness breaks and she dangles in the air. Gabe tries to save her but has a hard time keeping his grip on her gloved hands. The glove starts slipping off and before he can pull her up, the glove comes off completely and Sarah plummets to her death.

* ActionSurvivor: Gabe, Tucker, and Jessie.

* DamselInDistress: Jessie Deighan turns into one. She's a helicopter pilot. She does mountain rescues. Then she gets scared by bats in a cave, and cringes in a corner while the he-men fight.

* KarmaHoudini: Technically both Tucker and Walker could've been sued, placed under investigation, or had charges pressed against them by Sarah's family, for their roles in her untimely death, and although both of them [[LaserGuidedKarma suffered for it]], neither of them received any legal comeuppance.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Tucker kills Delmar with his own shotgun.
* HonorBeforeReason

** When Qualen shoots Kristel in the work print all three bloody bullet impacts are shown, in the R rated version it cuts away after the first shot to show Traver's reaction.
** The Gabe and Travers fight has been edited (this might not be censorship, apparently the filmmakers decided it would be better to have Gabe shoot Traver's with his piton gun before falling under the ice as per the R rated version) in the work print Gabe shoots Traver's once with the piton gun and Traver's gets up and tries to shoot Gabe through the ice and is then shot by Hal three times with a shotgun before falling under the ice (this explains why Hal appears with a shotgun in the R rated version).

* SmugSnake: The terrorists.

* WomenAreWiser: Kristel seems to be the only level-headed, sensible person in Qualen's crew.