Here is a subdued true-life drama about a calamitous attempt to climb Mount Everest in 1996. It’s a film with loads of ice, snow, beards, mountains, beards and men shouting desperate instructions at each other through their snowy beards. The tremulous womenfolk are pining and whining on the end of a radio receiver or telephone, while the heroic guys battle the elements. Jake Gyllenhaal has a role that turns out to be bafflingly peripheral. The dramatic focus is split between around half a dozen characters, and it’s not clear who we should root for or why. Jason Clarke plays Rob Hall, one of the new breed of guides who have made climbing Everest a commercialised big business: there is a virtual traffic jam of well-off middle-aged guys being conducted up to the peak. His followers include part-time postman Doug Hansen (John Hawkes), experienced climber Yasuko (Naoko Mori), and big-talking Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), who as the catastrophe unfolds has one of the most extraordinary stories of all. Maybe the movie should have been just about him. Everest doesn’t deliver the edge-of-your-seat thrills or a centrally compelling story. By the end of this, audiences may feel they have laboriously made it to the summit – without getting much of a view.
