Cliffhanger Pics

Cliffhanger is a 1993 American action-adventure thriller directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. Stallone plays a mountain climber who becomes embroiled in a failed heist set in a U.S. Treasury plane flying through the Rocky Mountains. The film was a box office success, earning more than $250 million worldwide.

In the opening scene, hotshot mountain climber and rescue ranger Gabe Walker (Sylvester Stallone) and fellow ranger Jessie Deighan (Janine Turner) are dispatched to pick up their friend Hal Tucker (Michael Rooker) on a narrow peak in the Rocky Mountains called "The Tower", when his bad knee gives out. While moving from one mountaintop to a helicopter via a steel cable, Hal's girlfriend Sarah's (Michelle Joyner) harness breaks and she is left dangling over a deep chasm. While the others try frantically to come up with a solution, Gabe straps himself in and goes out to save Sarah, but is unsuccessful; her gloved hand slips through Gabe's and she falls 4,000 feet to her death in the chasm.

Eight months later, Gabe returns to town for the first time since Sarah's funeral. Overcome with guilt over having lost Sarah, Gabe has returned only to pack his remaining possessions to leave permanently and convince Jessie to come with him. However, a radio distress call comes in to the local rescue center where Hal and Jessie still work. Hal heads off to find the stranded climbers while Jessie pleads with Gabe to join Hal's rescue attempt. Battling his inner demons Gabe meets Hal on the mountain, where Hal, still angry with Gabe for being unsuccessful at saving Sarah, lashes out and almost throws Gabe off a ledge.

The rescue turns out to be a fake; the two climbers are taken prisoner by a group of ruthless thieves led by former Military Intelligence member Eric Qualen (John Lithgow), who seeks to recover three suitcases containing $100 million in uncirculated $1,000 bills belonging to the United States Department of the Treasury. With the aid of turncoat Treasury agent Richard Travers (Rex Linn), Qualen and his mercenaries attempt to steal the suitcases via a daring air-to-air transfer, but the transfer is foiled and the three suitcases are lost among the mountains and two die during the heist. The thieves' plane loses power during the attempt and crashes. The suitcases holding the money have beacon locators, but the thieves need expert help locating them in the mountainous terrain, thus prompting them to summon the unwitting Gabe and Hal to their aid.

The group locates the first of the three cases, and Gabe is tethered to a rope and ordered to scale a steep wall to retrieve it. Gabe frees himself from the rope, and the group begins firing up the mountain, causing an avalanche which takes Heldon (Denis Forest), one of Qualen's thugs. Seeing the money flutter down from the top of the mountain, Qualen presumes Gabe dead and orders the group to proceed to the second case.

Gabe survives the avalanche and makes his way to an abandoned cabin where he finds Jessie, who was airlifted into the area earlier. Together, they reach the second case only moments before Qualen and his mercenaries arrive. They find the case empty (except for a single $1,000 bill with the words "Want to Trade?" written on it) and split up to find Gabe. Qualen's mercenary Ryan (Gregory Scott Cummins) chases after Gabe and Jessie. Gabe and Ryan slide down a hill, fighting and the thug is killed when he flies down into an abyss, as Gabe hangs onto a cliff at the last second. Two of Hal's friends, casually hanging out on the mountain, run into Hal and the thieves. Hal tells them to run, and as they do, one is shot dead by Qualen's mercenary Kynette (Leon Robinson). The other parachutes off a cliff, where his parachute is caught on a tree branch, leaving him dangling off the ground. When Gabe makes an attempt to climb out of a crevice, he is spotted by Kynette. A fight ensues between Gabe and Kynette in the cave, resulting in the latter being impaled on a stalactite, after beating the former up. Gabe tries to pick up the thief's radio to call the rescue helico