Renny Harlin (“Die Hard 2”, “Deep Blue Sea”) directs this average at best action film. It never thrills us the way it should as it suffers from being predictable due to following the clichés, which it never has fun with doing.

In “Cliffhanger”, a mid-air heist goes horribly wrong and a group of bad guys led by Eric Qualen (John Lithgow “Shrek”) have to search for suitcases full of money in the Rocky Mountains. They call for help and use the skills of two mountain rangers to find the money. Sylvester Stallone (“Rocky”, “The Expendables 2”) plays the main mountain ranger Gabe Walker, who escapes the bad guys and now has to save the day.

The film really fails in the characters/acting section as we see the various stars deliver tons of corny dialog. Stallone can add emotional sides (as seen in “Rocky” and “First Blood”) but here the emotional scenes are so predictable that they become almost laughable. John Lithgow reminded me of Dennis Hopper in “Speed” as he could have been a lot better had he been given more interaction with the hero and a few better lines. The other characters are really dull and that’s another reason why the film doesn’t quite work.

The action scenes are entertaining but they never live up to their potential, the film is a little too gory, the characters are weak and deliver bad lines and all-round it just isn’t very interesting. “Cliffhanger” isn’t as bad as Stallone’s “Daylight” (which is similar in a lot of ways to this film) but it isn’t any “Rocky” or “First Blood” either. “Cliffhanger” is a real disappointment as it could have been so much more… on the plus side the end fight sequence is pretty darn good (it’s easily the best part of the movie). Arguably it’s in the better half of Stallone’s filmography but that really doesn’t say much.