The usual ricocheting American blockbuster...
On the back cover we find written:
"Taylor is a young lawyer at odds with his working environment. Harold is a scientist oppressed by his intrusive wife. Both share a great passion: mountaineering. Thanks to the right connections, they take on the hardest and most extreme challenge, climbing the summit of the legendary K2, the most inaccessible peak in the world. Up there, among vertiginous crevasses and snowy summits, they will have to fight with all their strength to discover a new meaning to life.
Shot among the mountains of Pashmir, "K2 - The last challenge" brings back with great effect and gripping spectacle the exploits of a group of expert mountaineers: the challenge between man and nature that will have neither winners nor losers..."
You can't understand why American films always have to take that amazing, spectacularised approach to certain subjects. Some scenes are bordering on buffoonery. The title alone is laughable, a caricature of reality. Peanuts for the little monkeys who go to the cinema.
Oddly enough, though, the photography is excellent; all in all a light little film for spending an evening with a big bowl of popcorn, with no thoughts or reflections of any kind...
Running time: 109 min
Year: 1992
Director: Franc Roddam
Among the mountain films we have reviewed you will also find Touching the Void (La morte sospesa).
Film fact sheet and who it suits
- Director: Franc Roddam
- Year: 1992
- Running time: 109 minutes
- Setting: the ascent of K2 by two mountaineering enthusiasts, a lawyer and a scientist
It's an action film more than a mountain film: anyone looking for a realistic portrayal of high-altitude mountaineering will be disappointed, while anyone wanting a light evening can enjoy its photography. For a true story of survival and choices at altitude we recommend instead Nanga Parbat by Joseph Vilsmaier.