One of the best mountaineering movies

Rating: 6/10 (20 December 2015)

This was a great movie. Fantastic cinematography, solidly directed and great performances. Empathy for characters who spend a small fortune to go up a mountain with the understanding that they could be killed and for that eventuality to be realized is difficult to achieve. Even the script is self aware of that and in one scene the characters ask what the appeal is. But do we need this justification?, the extremity of mountaineering, its toll to the human body and ultimately the human spirit is drama enough. To that end Everest beautifully charts the beauty and horror of mountaineering as well as its impact to powerless onlookers. This would have been easier to make as a documentary but bravo to the filmmakers for scripting and acting this piece out. A great technical achievement. The performances are great too, Jason Clarke is knock out. Josh Brolin was great too putting in a very honed in nuanced performance. However the usually brilliant Jake Gyllenhaal plays it too cartoonish and his performance was just that believable. But thats a very minor negative, I strongly recommend you view this movie on the largest screen you can fine.