 | Themes
 | Guilt/Confession
| In "Vertical Limit", the hero
is guilty about the fact that he cut his father
from the rope that was holding himself and his sister
to a rock face, at his fathers instructions - "If you don't cut the
rope you will be killing your sister too."(see also sacrifice,
below) We see the hero's guilt in his interaction with his sister
and with Wick, the surrogate father who shows him that sacrifice
is what life is about. (Timothy Leuers) |
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Sacrifice
| "Vertical Limit" a film full of sacrifice.
The father the beginning of the film asks to be cut from the rope so that
his son and daughter might live. Elliot the millionaire asks (and then
forces) Bob, the injured climber, to sacrifice himself when they are
trapped in a cravasse with limited supplies of water and medicine. The
Bench brothers and the Pakistani rescuer sacrifice themselves for the
three that are trapped in the cave. The Pakistani rescuer says - "Allah
says that it is not when you, but what you do before you
die that matters." At the end of the film, Wick cuts himself, and
Elliot, from the rope, thus repeating the sacrifice made at the beginning
of the film, proving his words to the guilt ridden hero "If your
father had the knife he would have cut the rope
himself." Prior to the action shown in the film,
Wick "pulled three men down off the mountain" losing all his toes in the
process in a previous rescue mission.
(Timothy Leuers) |
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