Fall (Theatrical and Uncut Version) [Blu-ray]

Two twenty something girls looking for adventure decided to climb to the top of an old long abandoned television transmitter tower; a good half mile into the sky. It's old, it's rusting and they have not bothered to tell anyone where they are going. Why the tower's owners did not take down part of the lower ladder to prevent this sort thing from happening is anyone's guess. So they get to the top and, you can see this coming, the entire rusty ladder collapses leaving these two trapped at the top with no way down. Stuck in the middle of a desert with the nearest civiliasation (a diner) a good few miles away. The days are hot with sun blazing down, and vultures circling awaing their next meal, and the nights are freezing cold. How are they going to survive with just about 50 ft of rope, a little food and a small drone to take selfies at the top of the tower. This is a real nail-biter of a movie, with the added delight of a twist in the middle that you will simply not see coming and puts a whole new perspective on their situation. The Blu Ray contains both the theatrical cut, the potty-mouth uncensorered cut, a director's commentary and a good in-depth making of featurette. I thoughly enjoyed all of this. Excellent.

Fantastically tense. As a cliffhanger/mild horror [for those with a hint of vertigo]. There is one naughty plot twist, but l forgive it as the end result gives additional tension!

Good film

I struggled with my 5 star rating, but in the end felt the film is well worth the 5...The plot is very simple - 2 experienced climbers, who suffered a terrible accident in the prologue, go to climb a 2000 foot abandoned radio tower in the middle of nowhere - and get trapped at the top with no way down. That's about it. What yo get is incredible tension with both the mountaineering scenes and the tower climb. How they filmed it all makes for interesting special features. It looks (and mostly is) incredibly real with the two ladies doing a lot of the climbing. A nice touch is that the climbing/stunt doubles do get a credit at the end titles roll. Now just a couple of personal observations. Both my wife and I felt that, good as they were both characters looked like teenagers on a jolly, when we are led ro believe they would be in their early to mid twenties (one of them was married). Then...as experience climbers would they not have researched the propery and location thoroughly instead of, seemingly, just turning up with back packs (and a drone).? The version here only contains one "F" word, and I believe the BLURAY has the uncensored version whichere they are in full flow with the swearing. It's different and horribly realistic - 15 cert. Oh and what was Jeffrey Dean Morgan doing as the father of one of the girls? Do give the xtras a go. They will help understand. Vertigo sufferes beware...!

Fall is directed by Scott Mann who also wrote the script with Jonathan Frank. The DVD has an audio commentary from which I have culled some technical information. The plot: incredibly simple, three climbers, Becky (Grace Caroline Curry), her husband, played by Mason Gooding, and her best friend Hunter (Virginia Gardner), are climbing a rock-face, when the husband falls to his death. Not surprisingly Becky goes into free-fall (no pun intended), and drinks a lot, aggravating her already strained relationship with her father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who did not like her deceased husband. 51 weeks later, Hunter shows up, with the proposal that they scatter the husband's ashes from the top of a 2,000 ft radio mast - in order to bring closure, not just for Becky, but Hunter as well and reactivate Becky's love of climbing. They successfully climb the tower, which consists of three sections, the first a triangular structure, with an internal ladder, then a round pillar to which the radio antennae are attached, with an external ladder, leading to a small platform, on top of which is a 30' pole on top of which is a warning light to alert aircraft. They scatter the ashes and attempt to climb down which causes the corroded ladder to the column to fall away, trapping them 2,000 ft above ground - Becky's back-pack falls off and is caught in one of the antenna, 50 or so feet below them. it holds their water and the remote control for the drone they have been flying. The action sequences for the rest of the film are the consequence of their attempts to use their mobile phones to alert anyone of the danger they are in, to get their water and the remote control for the drone. They are experienced climbers, they do not panic but they are making decisions in extremis - they are fallible and they make mistakes. Much more important is what you learn about the two women and what they learn about each other, confined on a 3' platform. This film could so easily just become another Hollywood film where "women are driving the narrative", where they "have agency" and are "strong and independent". In other words they could have been given the emotional depth of cardboard cut-outs. To begin with, although men are almost completely absent from the film, Becky is defined by her relationship with her dead husband and with her father - she has sacrificed the one for the other. Hunter is an adrenaline junky. She lives for extreme thrills and pushes Becky as far as she can physically and emotionally go. She also lives for and through her internet blog: in which she depicts her life as one of boundless adventure seeking and excitement. She uses the drone to complete a blog at the top of the mast (to publish later as there is no signal). As the film progresses the viewer realises that she is defined by her audience (which I guess is mainly men). She pulls her tee-shirt lower and tells Becky this is "click-bait". The climb actually meets Hunter's emotional needs as Becky's. Hunter is also bereaved and she is where she is because of the dead husband and Becky is there because of Hunter. This puts their relationship under considerable strain. A theme running through the film is that technology in itself does not solve problems. The mast is in itself superannuated technology - it is rusting away and serves as a roost for vultures. At 2,000 ft their phones do not send signals and the drone is not able to alert the outside world. After trying to use Hunter's phone (they do not know whether it was able to send a signal), there is no response and Becky says caustically to Hunter, "perhaps your 60,000 followers are not bothered". It is not just the technology that lets them down - so do the only humans who pass by, and their sisterhood breaks down. There is a twist that I did not see coming (indeed I thought everything that happened thereafter was impossible, which is why I listened to the audio-commentary - however on viewing the replay the last part of the film is possible). A final word about how the film was made. It was costed at $2 million dollars, but ran significantly over - on a limited cinema release it made $21 million. The main reason for the overspend was the coronavirus lock-down, which trapped Becky in California and her father in Carolina - meaning their scenes had to be shot in two locations using body doubles and splicing (if we splice anymore). The mast is replicated by building three towers, the top 30', a 50' and 100', on top of a mountain - meaning that the visual back-drop is prospectively correct. Drones were used for the vertical and panoramic shots and were often operated by the actors (it is harder to fly a drone towards something than away from something - hence a lot of the drone shots are in reverse). The three actors are all reasonably competent climbers so they do most of the action themselves with the guidance of some professional free-climbers. Grace Currey is also a trained dancer and physically climbs the 30' mast in close to 'real-time'. Apart from coronavirus the film overshot because extreme changes in weather - much of it was so hot that the actresses could only work in 20 minute stints and on other days storms blew through. one scene is filmed during one of these storms. No one was allowed to climb the mock masts when the wind was in excess of 20 mph - which it often was. CGI is used mainly to remove the safety wires and any free-climbers supporting the actresses and I guess the vertical shots which show the 'whole' tower. It also had to be used to fake lip movement when the studio insisted that the numerous F-words were removed and replaced by 'freking'. I have seen the CGI criticised, but it was good enough for me - after all the tower is not moving around and pretending to Kung-Fu fight! Most importantly, despite their failings I think most viewers will like these two and want them to survive.

This was mostly great. The major part of the film was hugely suspenseful, particularly if you have a thing about heights, and my heart was in my mouth at several key moment. Where I felt the film fell down (no pun intended) was towards the end, and I thought that the 'big twist' was a little unbelievable. I don't want to give any spoilers, but come on, could that have really all happened in the way it did? And the thing with the ring?! And Jeffrey Dean Morgan was... Well, the two girls could teach him a thing or two about acting.

Good film worth buying

Zwei Freundinnen,jung und hübsch und süchtig nach Abenteuern,erklimmen heimlich einen riesigen Turm,dessen Plattform so groß ist wie eine Pizzaschachtel. Der Turm liegt mitten im Nirgendwo,so das den beiden Freundinnen niemand zur Hilfe kommen kann im Notfall Eben genau dieser Notfall entsteht als die Leiter des Turms kaputt geht und die beiden Frauen auf der kleinen Plattform gefangen sind und unter ihnen tausende Meter von dem sicheren Grund trennen Beide müssen um ihr Überleben kämpfen,denn ohne Wasser und Nahrung und einem Gewitter im Anmarsch sind sie beide bald dem Tode geweiht.. Fall ist ein spannender Survival Film mit einem schockierenden Twist am Ende Aboslut sehenswert wenn man über einige Logiklücken hinwegsehen kann

Me ha encantado esta increíble película la cual te mantendrá en tensión todo el tiempo,es realmente impresionante,tienes que verla,un saludo!

海外版は日本の機械で再生できない。規格の違いで映像も見れない。知らなかった......

Perfetto

Seen (Fall) at cinema when it came out wanted for my movie collection good movie