Into Thin Air: Death on Everest

1997
5.7| 1h30m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 09 November 1997 Released
Producted By: Columbia TriStar Television
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

An adaptation of Jon Krakauer's best selling book, "Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster". This movie attempts to re-create the disastrous events that took place during the Mount Everest climb on May 10, 1996. It also follows Jon Krakauer throughout the movie, and portrays what he was going through while climbing this mountain.

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Director

Robert Markowitz

Production Companies

Columbia TriStar Television

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Into Thin Air: Death on Everest Audience Reviews

Nonureva Really Surprised!
Steineded How sad is this?
Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Owen5-1 I am only writing this review because of the half witted comments made about it by people who have not risked their lived climbing mountains. I have had exposure several times and nearly died on two occasions, while my wife nearly died once. My son had frostbite on nine toes on one of our trips. Mountain climbing is no joke and the professional guides who risk their lives to take spoilt rich idiots up there have my sympathy. I wonder how many of these spoilt brats have killed their guides and porters and I don't mean just on Everest. I loved the "character development" comment by one reviewer who sort of missed the point that it was a true story and that in such an action dominated drama there isn't room for any such aesthetics. The movie does what it set out to do: show that money can make even a sensible man break his own rules and kill himself. Not out of greed but because he felt an obligation towards his client above and beyond money, something that the truly rich will never appreciate.It is a fact that the most heroic actions that we know of are probably only 10% of the actual number as most act and die unseen. The movie shows the events accurately. Sure there are flaws but before you open your mouth try it yourself then see how close to the bone it cuts. Rob Hall's famous "phone call" to his wife is one of the great Everest moments and really should be classed as a great move moment. I have NOT read the book but I have climbed not a few mountains. As for the acting, it seemed realistic to me and I will tell you I didn't spend too much time looking at others unless there was trouble as you only look at the next step and the weather. I have no idea if the movie followed the book but I know that the movie followed the true story and that is all that matters. This ISN'T a movie. It is a film pseudo-documentary and any comments about plot, characters etc are totally irrelevant. At the very least it may keep some rich idiot amateurs from killing more professionals. In my opinion it achieved it aims perfectly and that is my theme above: to show the real reason that Rob Hall died anything else is superfluous. As for not following the book? Who cares? It tells the story adequately. You must remember that the author was an amateur mountaineer and one of those "rich idiots" and i have little sympathy for him although his survival was miraculous.
Nocgirl72 I am intrigued about Everest after watching the Discovery Channel series "Everest: Beyond the limit" where they follow hikers up this mountain using helmet cams. This movie is based off the book about a deadly day on Everest where 8 hikers died in a massive storm, but an amazing survival story of Beck Weathers emerged. I was pleased to see Richard Jenkins from "The Visitor" playing Beck Weathers. The story gets totally lost in bad acting and bad music. Wikipedia has a better run down on Beck Weathers than this movie portrayed. Early on the movie focus on the dangerous commercialization of Everest and how trekking companies will sell a 50k permit to anyone that wants to hike Everest regardless of experience. It is a very dangerous game. However the move loses focus about 30 minutes into it. The music is really bad too. The whole movie is just bad. Skip it and rent the Discovery series instead, or just read the book.
Jim Kelly Although the account on which this film was based has been criticized for implications by Krakauer as to where and upon whom blame for the disaster should fall, the movie falls short of the sense of camaraderie, the overwhelming sense of wonder (albeit the film's greatest asset is the location/sets/cinematography), and the intense sense of loss and tragedy of the book.The acting is slick and rather true to the book, but the casting (anyone remember Shooter from Happy Gilmore and Peter Horton's character from Thirtysomething?)makes it more than a little hard to believe, especially if you have already read the book; it did not measure up to the characters I had "created" for myself while reading Krakauer's account. The "made for TV" type breaks were a bit "TV-esque" as well.If you have not done so already, read the book. Or if you have seen the film, read the book. No film script can compare with the perspective, description and detail found within Krakauer's honest and humanistic account of the 1996 Everest disaster.
Spike-in-Berlin As someone who has read Jon Krakauers novel I was really interested in this movie although I did not expect much and how right I turned out to be. The movie is extremely rushed, we are barely introduced to the expedition members and already we go up to the summit. In only a few days of course because nearly everything concerning the preparations, the partially really amusing incidents in basecamp, the acclimatisation was cut out of the movie to show us a rush, no a blitz up the summit. The other expeditions, especially those responsible for a lot of the disaster because they were completely incompetent and inexperienced from Taiwan e.g. and the Indians who perished in the storm are ignored (Indians) or have minimum appearance (Taiwanese, I hated these jerks when I read the book). And although I am not an alpinist myself I did not believe a second this movie showed us Mt. Everest but some mountain in a much lower mountain range (actually Austrian Alps). I mean they are supposed to stand on the highest summit worldwide and in the background you see at least one clearly higher summit, how cheap is that? Well it is obviously as cheap as this movie was although the actors are really trying but they cannot create sympathy for their paper-thin characters with the few lines they got from this poorly written script. But I simply cannot take (or even stand) a scene seriously where a professional mountain climber in the midst of a snowstorm in the death zone takes of his gloves, breathing mask and other protections for no reason whatsoever...only perhaps because we shall see his face's expressions in a death scene? Too inaccurate for a documentation and not good or interesting enough for a movie-drama. And that the other 7! deaths of this day were not even mentioned in the epilogue was quite tasteless. Because the movie was fairly entertaining and the actors at least tried 3 out of 10.