The Climb

I disagree completely with Sweedy regarding the plot. I found the plot to be very plausible. The character studies were very well laid out, and the movie worked well enough for me to rate it very highly. I could relate very well to everything in the movie, including wanting to climb a tower in my neighborhood when I was younger. Perhaps one needs to understand the setting for this film to understand the movie completely. The people that made this movie did a great job of capturing the feel of the era, and wove the story and the characters into a very memorable film.

thoughtful, lucid direction with oodles of gentle, good humor smartly mixed up with some pre-adolescent raucousness and nope, not even a touch of smarminess or condescension. What could be better than that?

Gregory Smith is a youngster who has a goal to climb to the top of a very tall radio tower. He befriends an old man, John Hurt, whose goal is to die. Together they cooperate in order to reach their objectives. There is a subplot involving David Strathairn, the boy's father, who is perceived as a coward, because he didn't fight in World War 2. This simple story is well told, with good character development, and fine acting. This is a little beyond typical family entertainment, and more suited to adult audiences. The climactic climb is exciting, and in the end, not only are everyone's goals accomplished, but some important lessons are learned. - MERK

Some fine performances grace this completely predictable drama of a young boy who wants to climb a soon-to-be-demolished local radio tower to prove his bravery and counteract the undercurrent of shame thrown at his father by the community for not being in either WWII or the Korean War.

The boy befriends an adult neighbor's crotchety father, who is dying of lung cancer but helps the boy try to realize his dream. When a crisis looms in the film's climax, the boy finds out how brave his father really is.

As the gruff-but-only-on-the-outside dying man, John Hurt flirts dangerously with hamminess, but still holds your attention in the film's showiest role. The boy is very good, but David Strathairn as the father gives the best performance. It's a typical Strathairn role - the seeming milquetoast who isn't one in the end - but his acting lifts the role out of the commonplace by giving us the reserves of strength and shades of character within an "ordinary" man. Few actors can portray simple goodness and decency as well as Strathairn can, and still make the characters seem human and interesting.

As for the film, you've seen this kind of story many times before - usually on TV.

I am in general agreement with my fellow reviewers: despite the predictability of much of the story, the acting was well done overall & the story was plausible. John Hurt is always a pleasure to watch; David Strathairn reminded me a lot of a younger Sam Waterston. I found the climactic rescue scene very unsettling, and that's a tribute to the actors, since they (more than the special effects) conveyed the danger of the situation. I had never heard of this film before I saw it, so I had no big expectations--my formula for being pleasantly surprised.