El ascenso

Two mountain climbers partner in the rescue of tycoon Dabney Coleman's son off a high peak. Jason George and Ned Vaughn aren't just different racially they have serious different approaches to life. Vaughn is white and a Christian, George is black and a skeptic to say the least. George is also keeping company with a believer in Kylie Santiago and her father Clifton Davis really does not like his son-in-law.

One reviewer is right about one thing, this Christian film from the Billy Graham Evangelical Association spent quite a bit of dough on this, especially the mountain climbing scenes. Coleman's company which got a windfall of good publicity decides to sponsor both these guys on a climb of the legendary Mount Chiconcagua in the Chilean Andes.

I was actually quite impressed with the 21st century technology used for mountain climbing. That 3 dimensional holograph was really something.

It's a Christian film, it's also a tragic one and it follows the usual parameters. But it's a great film technically if nothing else.

When I saw the movie, it left a "mark" in my mind, I kept remembering parts of it and had to watch it again. The scenery is awesome and beautiful.The sequence of the story keeps you interested from start to end. There are so many topics of our life sewn together and presented in this production, like our struggles with traumas from the past and our pursue of success. You see business trickery intertwined with the thirst of fame;life & death decisions and more. There is a little bit of everything for every taste in this movie, from the sport fan to the romantic. It is a movie that is up to date with our use of technology so when you see it you sense this is a movie of our present time. I highly recommend it and you will be surprised!

This is a faith based mountain climbing film about two people from different worlds who decide to work together to achieve a lifelong dream of climbing a mountain peak. There are sub-plots to fill out the characters and the story which are all well done and even though the film is predictable it is engaging and entertaining. The film also has a great supporting cast of television character actors that you will recognize which helps to elevate the material (even if at times it feels like a TV movie of the week). I thought the two leads had very good chemistry and Dabny Coleman was an added bonus as he's always been a favorite of mine for years (and the number one reason why I decided to watch the film in the first place).

PROS

+ The movie puts the spotlights on opposing selfishness, and is today more relevant than 22 years ago. Our culture is now saturated with those types of 'me, me, me'. I do that mountain on my own, I am my own boss in life, I, I, I. What a wonderful lesson Jason could learn in this movie, and is able to teach many others trapped in that selfish mentality today.

+ It elevates the family and the responsibilities of a father. At the same time it elevates the role of a father of the bride and shows how good protection looks alike, but also how biblical forgiveness should be alike.

CONS

• I never saw in a movie such a blatant endorsement, even including a closeup of one of his books. Billy Graham was one of the biggest frauds of Christian history, and this is also the reason why I sadly cannot promote this overall very good movie. (He was a great admirer of the 33° Mason Norman Vincent Peale; had a strong tendency towards Universalism; key figure in the ecumenical movement; used Roman Catholic lay people as supervisors and altar workers; close collaboration with the Vatican and the Pope; endorsement of female pastors)

• The advice Ned gives to the then girlfriend of Jason, when she was trying to get out of fornication, was 'we all go through periods like that'. This is a deeply troubling advise, which has contributed to the notion that it is ok in younger years to commit some 'mistakes', and then simply ask later for forgiveness.

While it might be true that THEOS can (and will upon repentance) forgive any sin, there is no assurance that we are ever drawn to the awareness of those sins and to the respective repentance. The further down the road, the more a miracle it requires getting out of it. But to the credit of this movie, this bad advice is obviously (and at least in parts) 'overwritten' by the later repentance of Jason.

• When Jason repents, he asks 'Jesus' to come into his heart. This is a formula foreign to the Bible and part of the evangelism scheme of Billy Graham, to enable him to count the 'conversions'. Another part of this scheme is the lifting of hands and then counting those lifted hands as saved people.

Was great to watch a movie where real life issues were dealt with but where you didn't have to get dragged through a sewer to figure out who was the bad guy. Jason George does a very convincing job of playing the know it all. Ned Vaughn is very good in the roll of the conservative, play it safe type. Good music sound track. Very beautiful scenery. I would have liked to see more climbing scenes, but the action that was in the movie was very well done. It makes you wonder who is the better climber. The actors, or the camera man who has to drag a camera up ahead and make all the climbs before the actors can be filmed doing their roles. Overall the movie was very well done. It was wonderful to watch a movie where your ears weren't assaulted every five minutes with a string of profanity from one of the actors. Two Thumbs Up!