Kevin Macdonald's documentary cliffhanger — in the most literal sense possible — on the amazing-but-true story of Joe Simpson (based on his memoir), a British mountaineer who breaks his leg on the descent from a Peruvian peak in 1985, slips over a precipice at the end of a rope a hundred feet above a bottomless crevasse, is cut loose by his climbing partner, Simon Yates, and left for dead, yet lives to tell the tale. We know the outcome from the outset, though not the ghastly details. Dramatic re-enactments and high-grade nature footage illustrate the talking-head and voice-over accounts, with only an occasional straining for effect. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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