Becky is completely and desperately stranded in her pit of despair.
Her beloved husband, Dan, died while out on a rock-climbing jaunt. Despite all the proper precautions taken, his equipment failed, and he fell like a helpless stone from a very high mountain wall. Becky was right there, climbing beside him. And she saw it all.
Now all these (what is it?) weeks (months?) later, she wanders hopelessly with little to guide her. The postage-covered cardboard box that holds Dan’s ashes still sits on the entryway counter where Becky dropped it. It silently watches as she leaves for the local bar and then staggers back home to get another drink, pop another pill.
Her dad is trying to get her to snap out of her funk and start life again. But all Becky can see is dark clouds. All she can feel is pain. And all she can say to her father is … well, hurtful, nasty things. He once spoke harshly of Dan, you see. And Becky’s current cup of misery spills over so easily these days.
Just before Becky fatally drowns in that cup, however, she gets a call from her BFF Shiloh Hunter. Hunter was a great friend to both Becky and Dan. And if anything, she was the best climber of all three of them. And so even though Becky doesn’t want to be “saved”—for this surely is another ploy orchestrated by her Dad—she opens the door and lets her girlfriend in.
Hunter has plans. Yes, she admits that Becky’s father called her. But she would have been there soon in any case had she known how bad off Becky was. In Hunter’s opinion, the only way Becky will ever pull herself up by her own carabiner is to face her fear straight on. Hunter knows exactly what to do: They’re going to climb.
In fact, they’re going to climb up the B-67 TV tower. Haven’t heard of it? That’s no surprise. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and it’s been defunct and abandoned for years now. But this skinny tower of iron and steel stretches some 2,000 feet straight up. It was once the tallest structure in the United States—so high that it needs a constant blinking red beacon on top to ward off low-flying aircraft.
And this, this will be Becky’s salvation. Together they’ll climb to a small platform at its peak and Becky will scatter Dan’s ashes. Like Dan used to say, “If you’re scared of dying, don’t be afraid of living.” That’s exactly what they’ll do, ‘cause there’s no living that compares to hanging off a small platform by one hand 2,000 feet in the air.
Hooya!
Of course, anyone who takes even a little time to think about a long-abandoned TV tower might wonder, Uh, wait, doesn’t iron and steel rust? And their answer would be, sure enough. Ladders, railings, rungs and supports do indeed rust. And old, rusty bolts rattle and wobble loose.
Becky and Hunter are indeed climbing together, hoping Becky will climb out of her pit of despair. But what they’ll find at the peak of tower B-67 is another question altogether.
Becky and Hunter are good friends who both are willing to give their all for the other. Hunter repeatedly encourages her friend that she is much stronger than she gives herself credit for being. During their time together we learn of some points of strain in their relationship. But the two apologize and forgive.
Dan, on the other hand, is revealed to be less than what Becky always thought he was. In fact, her father’s harsh words about Dan—for which Becky had pushed him out of her life—turn out to be pretty accurate. Dad tries nonetheless to help his struggling daughter at every turn. Eventually, Becky and her father have a moment of healing and forgiveness, too.
Bravery and self-sacrifice abound here. Hunter and the film make it clear that people should live their lives to the fullest. (Though those statements could be misinterpreted as a license to take foolish risks. And on that front, there are some rather foolish choices made here.)
None.
Becky and Hunter both wear tank-tops that reveal some skin. Moreover, Hunter has a social media channel that she’s recording herself for, so she wears a push-up bra to emphasize her attributes and takes a number of pictures and videos with that feature in mind. (The movie’s camera watches closely, too.) “T—s for clicks,” she proclaims. Later, though, she removes that bra to use it for something else. (She removes it while still under her top.)
We find out that Dan had an affair with someone.
Things get pretty violent and bloody in this PG-13 film. We see one person fall from a great height, but don’t see that person impact the ground. On the other hand, we do see one dead body that’s bloody, ripped and torn and then being eaten by vultures. Someone stuffs a large object into a wound on this corpse. The camera also examines a small animal that’s still alive with its organs hanging out. Vultures swoop in and begin eating this creature, too.
The birds swoop in an attempt to knock an injured person off a tower pole. One of the women also sustains a large cut on her leg that the vultures go after. However, one of those birds is grabbed, has its brains bashed out and is eaten in turn.
People dangle from heights in precarious ways in high winds. They swing on ropes and slam into the metal side and crossbeams of the tower. The tower falls apart under the weight of people climbing on it. They’re cut, injured from falls, and have their flesh torn from rope burns. Someone is almost hit by a speeding truck. Becky has a dream of waking in bed covered in blood. People feel the effects of having no food or water.
There are at least two f-words (perhaps more) in the tensest moments, along with more than 30 s-words. Joining those are several uses each of the words “d–n,” “b–ch,” “a–hole” and “h—.”
God’s and Jesus’ names are misused a total of 17 times (God being combined with “d–n” on three of those). Crude reference to male genitalia are uttered.
After her husband dies, Becky hits the liquor bottle hard. We see her staggering drunk in a bar and then going home to reach for another drink to wash down a prescription drug of some sort. In fact, it appears she’s about to take a handful of the pills before a call from Hunter stops her.
We see one of the women urinating off the side of the tower platform (seen from a long distance away). Someone falls over and vomits. Two guys steal a vehicle instead of offering rescue to people in need.
Fall is a tense but spare film. After all, how much can you do when your characters are trapped 2,000 feet in the air on a 4-foot-wide platform?
That location and those story limitations certainly intensify the film’s acrobatic dangling, especially when you layer in up-close rusted breakage and acrophobia-inducing camera angles. But those constraints also tend to hold a magnifying glass up to this pic’s kinda rusty and formulaic seams. At times it almost feels like someone pasted a What If? or a And Then sticker on the various sky-high scenes.
That aside, though, the bigger problem for family audiences comes in the form of Falls constant flow of profane and foul language, along with some gore and booziness. Those bits cause this fingertip hanging flick to slip and they make it far less suitable for an exciting climb into your local theater seat.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
