Date: 2000

Director: Martin Bennett

Starring: Chris O’Connell, Robin Tunney, Bill Paxton, Scott Glenn

Hackneyed for much of its length, director Martin Bennett still gives the perils of mountaineering some memorable images. Peter Garrett (Chris O’Connell) is a photographer whose professional climber sister Annie (Robin Tunney) finds herself trapped on the slopes of K2 with a storm rumbling in. She and two others, including arrogant tycoon Elliott Vaughn (Bill Paxton), find themselves in a crevice after ignoring advice not to climb. Naturally, Garrett puts together a rescue team.

The movie has plenty of B-movie tripe (the rescuers include a medic played effectively but improbably by the beautiful Izabella Scorupco, a former Bond girl). The movie escapes irrelevance only thanks to a slow-to-develop relationship between Garrett and reclusive climber Montgomery Wick (Scott Glenn), who grudgingly participates in the rescue and gives it the sort of cranky ethics you associate with nick-of-time filmmaking (“Watch out for the nitro!”). Yet it’s the snowy peaks (most are in New Zealand) that star, with Bennett’s brawny direction a precursor to sharper work on “Casino Royale.”