I can’t help having a soft spot for a movie that name-drops several pro wrestlers as a means to convey a nice bit of subtle foreshadowing, and plays Warrants «Cherry Pie» on its soundtrack like every five minutes.
On the other hand, it’s very difficult to empathize with the characters in this film; anyone who climbs a rusty, super creaky 2,000 foot TV tower (a choice so inane that under normal circumstances it’s known as the Fallacy of the Climbing Villain) in the middle of bumfuck nowhere just for shits and giggles deserves whatever’s coming to them.
The rationale, such as it is, behind the protagonists’ actions is that life is «too short» and «you gotta do something that makes you feel alive.» Methinks they’re confusing joie de vivre with having a fucking death wish. According to these people’s logic, Bobby De Niro and Chris Walken were really sucking the marrow out of life in those Russian roulette scenes from The Deer Hunter.
Now, that climbing artificial structures (known as buildering as well as several other names) is a reckless (not to mention illegal) thing to do doesn’t necessarily mean that those who do it take it lightly. I’m sure a lot of planning and prepping and getting in shape mentally and physically (even the relatively simple act of climbing a ladder becomes a Herculean labor when the ladder is twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower) precedes the actual deed.
We don’t see any of that here; not even a training montage. For Hunter (Virginia Gardner) and Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) it’s an overnight decision; sure, Hunter says she’s has «planned» it, and she’s some sort of daredevil You Tuber, but Becky is an out-of-practice rock climber who has ostensibly become a drunken slob in the year since her husband’s Disney Villain Death.
All of the above notwithstanding, the film certainly makes the most of its chosen setting. The landscape around the top of the tower (consisting of a «pizza-size platform») betrays a green screen quality to it, but this is a rare occasion in which this actually works in the movie’s favor; at such dizzying heights, wouldn’t the world and everything in it look surreal? Or, to put it more bluntly, wouldn’t your perception get all screwed up?
Moreover, the stunts don’t flat-out take your breath away, but they do kind of borrow it for a little while, which is better than nothing; also, there’s a certain measure of suspense regarding whether or not help is on the way — and while this is the only movie that I can think of where the audience is left literally waiting for the other shoe to drop, this aspect of the plot actually involves a pretty neat shot of, well, a shoe dropping.