Movie Review : Fall (2022)
In 2006, a film became an overnight cult sensation online before even being release solely based on its name: Snakes on a Plane. It was a film names Snakes on a Plane that features snakes on a plane and Samuel L. Jackson swearing about the titular plane being too full of snakes. The film was neither a success nor a failure. It made its money back and was largely forgotten within the span of a couple years. Fall, a movie literally about climbing a shaky 2000 feet fall metal structure, will more or less suffer the same fate.
It's not as endearing as Snakes on a Plane, but it has the naive charm of movies that were too hastily made for their own good.
So, who the fuck climbs a 2000 feet tall radio tower? Two girls: Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), two experienced rock climbers who take on this ill-advised challenge one year after Becky's husband Dan (Cuba Gooding Jr.'s son Mason) died a vertiginous death in another ill-advised (and especially ill-equipped) rock climbing endeavour. Both perceive it to be a pretty safe and straightforward healing journey until the tower's ladder collapses, leaving them stranded on top.
A Confusing Schadenfreude
Fall should be evaluated using one criteria only: does it give you vertigo? The answer lies somewhere between "not really" and "kind of". It's a movie that was obviously conceived for theatre screens and that will end up being watched in a home setting by most people since it remained in theatres for a mere six weeks. Originally supposed to be a short, Fall is lean on thought-provoking drama and, to a certain extent, on the hyper kinetic thrills it promises. But the tower itself is super important.
I would go as far as saying it's the most important character in the movie. It's rusted, weather beaten and it rattles in a worrisome way under the desert wind. It bears the weight of a history our protagonists have not lived through and don't care about. Given that Becky's sidekick Hunter is an extreme sports influencer who doesn't have respect for anything (not even her friend's boundaries), are we supposed to be entertained by this ill-conceived plan and its inevitable undoing? Are we supposed to feel schadenfreude?
I don't know. I definitely felt schadenfreude at the two dumb girls climbing a 2000 feet tower who was obviously falling apart, but Hunter's motives for putting her friends through this are pure. She wants to help her grieve for her husband. The collapse of the tower's ladder is supposed to be interpreted like a cruel twist of fate. That's legitimately dumb. The fact that they hadn't planned such eventuality and brought any length of rope feels even dumber.
Two rednecks grilling meets near the radio tower for unexplained reasons end up stealing their car and it made me laugh. I did not even feel bad. I don't think it was by design.
Disposable heroes for a disposable movie
Fall's obstinate refusal to either declare its protagonist stupid or complexify their story in any way, shape or form is what makes its oddball charm. It's one of these so-bad-it's-good movies. It has four characters. They don't connect in a clear and engaging way. The girls are grieving over a fuckboy who was on screen for like, 40 seconds before plunging to his doom. Becky's dad is interpreted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan who is a nice enough actor for a part that didn't even need on screen time.
You can always understand what co-writer and director Scott Mann was going for, but it never ends up making sense. Every decision seems made to make the girls climb up the tower and once they’re up there, Mann puts them through the gamut of desperate things you can do on top of a 2000 feet tower. It climaxes with the most excruciating drone battery charging session in the history of cinema, which is hilarious in the context that Gen Zs are always charging their phone wherever they go.
The story of Fall is presented earnestly as happening in and of itself, but nothing in this movie can be interpreted as such, which makes it extremely fucking funny.
*
So, what kind of rating can you give a movie you've enjoyed for the wrong reasons only? Fall didn't make me feel the way it wanted to make me feel, but it was a sneaky good time nonetheless. It's too one dimensional to be a knee slapping what-were-they-thinking viewing, but it's something that could’ve ended up on Red Letter Media's Best of the Worst were it made twenty years ago and it very well could've been. I should give this in the fives or the sixes, but I have an inexplicable fondness for this minor fiasco.
