Fall 2: Deadpoint

Grade: B

I have a soft spot for the Fall franchise, and I hope it continues as such. Fall, out in August 2022, was about two friends/hardcore climbers who got stuck on top of a 2,000 foot cell tower after the ladder broke off. It was more of a “can you sit through this?” stress test than a movie, but I came away with an admiration for the two stars: Grace Caroline Currey and especially Virginia Gardner, who I have professionally stalked ever since. For better or worse, I’ve seen and written about all seven of her feature films in between that Fall and this one.

You’ve had four years to see it, but if you don’t want to know a major spoiler for Fall, skip over this paragraph. Gardner (as Shiloh Hunter) is able to appear in Fall 2: Deadpoint via flashbacks. Her surviving sister Jax bonds with Shiloh’s old friend Luce when she comes over to take Shiloh’s old car off her hands. They find Shiloh’s scrapbook in a box of keepsakes in the car. Something on her bucket list that she never got to do was conquer a treacherous, precarious plank walk 4,000 feet above sea level on Mount Kwan in Thailand.

It’s been closed, and therefore not up to safety code for decades. Nobody has done it (legally) for years and years. Jax and Luce decide to go after the usual “Don’t you want to be brave?” dialogue—as if the only way to show bravery is to do incredibly stupid unauthorized climbs. Maybe it’s just me, but I think being able to say “no” is a viable way to display courage and strength. But I get it. We wouldn’t have a movie otherwise, so on they go to Thailand.

Both Fall movies have the lead characters doing something they shouldn’t have been doing anyway, so it’s hard to feel too much sympathy for them, but at the same time, I’m not a monster who hoped they died. I still felt for them, and wanted them to get down. As irresponsible as they were, it doesn’t make the sequences any less tense for me when Jax and Luce inevitably get trapped on those decades-old, rickety planks. Fall (2022) did a better job of conveying the ladies’ physical wear and tear when it came to hunger, thirst, fatigue, and sunburn. There’s not as much of that in Fall 2: Deadpoint.

The template set by Fall is repeated here, but not too much. When I finally began yearning for this installment to do something different, it did. Until then, we get two plot twists, both involving Luce. The first one had me thinking, “Well, that’s a choice, and a stretch,” and the next one, which begins with a three-word phrase, had me laughing out loud and thinking, “Of course.” The camcorder they have wouldn’t be able to zoom in nearly as much as they get it to, but I forgave that, because it sets up a hilarious punchline/payoff later. It’s the bit related to a pool table.

Harriet Slater is a perfect choice to play Shiloh’s sister Jax. In my Fall review, I compared Virginia Gardner to Reese Witherspoon. When I saw Slater in Tarot, I wrote that “she reminds me of Reese Witherspoon, Anna Faris, and Melissa Joan Hart rolled into one, and I look forward to seeing how her career progresses.” The writing was on the wall. The directors of Fall 2 create a nail-biting atmosphere. I loved the shot when Slater is free-swinging from one bar to another. We go to excruciating slow motion as she is in the air, untethered to anything, wondering if she’ll catch (and stay on) the next one.

The movie doesn’t stay on the planks until the end, like the first one largely did on the tower. After that plot point gets resolved, there is more action. It ends with a (excuse me) cliffhanger which could serve as a fine setup for a potential Fall 3. When it comes to a physical reaction, I didn’t think Fall 2: Deadpoint would “get me” like its predecessor did, but once again, my palms were drenched. It does its job as entertainment and a stress test. I’m glad they made another one, and I hope they make more. Oh, what will they get into—or on top of—next?

Grade: B