Trouble at the top

Rating: 7/10 (3 October 2015)

Watching this film was almost as gruelling as the work the actors put in themselves in this latest movie to recreate a true-life tragedy and yet I found its two hour duration passed by very quickly, so involving is it for the viewer.
I myself wasn't aware of the real story behind the film although with the recent avalanche tragedy on the mountain still fresh in the memory, it had a topicality about it even if it wasn't an avalanche that caused the tragedy here. Instead the causes appeared to be a lack of cooperation amongst competing teams aiming for the summit, poor timing at key stages of the climb, poor communications with the back-up team but of course the main reason was just sheer bad luck as a freak storm blew up and critically held up the descent and left the mountaineers exposed to the elements at their must severe.
There's no question that the almost documentary-style realistic approach was effective, with the weather effects and make-up work in particular putting the viewer right into the action. There were also some marvellous panning shots from on high lending an appropriate scale fitting to the monumentality of the physical task required to conquer the highest peak in the world. Of course the irony is that rather like Scott at the South Pole, the climbers here achieved their aim but couldn't complete the actual task which is to afterwards get back safely to base.
This isn't really an actors' film in my opinion given the set up of the film plus with their heavy out-wear clothing, profusion of beard-wearers and with their faces often covered up with snow and ice, it was heard for any of the lead actors to be really prominent but I actually felt this benefited the realism of the story anyway.
In the end the viewer must decide whether the attempt on the summit was brave or foolhardy. The sad answer of course is that it was both but while I'm a bit of a white- knuckle fiend myself, this film convinced me very effectively that climbing Everest will certainly never make it onto my own bucket list