Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) are free climbing thrill seekers, but after a fatal accident involving Becky’s husband, Dan (Mason Gooding), Becky hangs up her gear and sinks into a deep, alcoholic depression.  On the one-year anniversary of Dan’s accident, Hunter convinces Becky to climb an old radio tower with her, some 2,000+ feet up, before it gets torn down in a few months.  Once on top, the girls find themselves trapped as the ladder they used in their accent collapsed, and with limited resources and buzzards overhead, time is quickly running out for the two to form their escape. 

Fall is an action thriller written and directed by Scott Mann with assistance on the page from Jonathan Frank.  The straightforward concept is stretched to a bloated 107 minutes, and while there are some great moments of tension, the concept is just not robust enough to support the runtime.  The duo at the head of the film does their best with the limited material, and to the script’s credit it does try working in some shifting relationship dynamics, but ultimately it is all quite derivative and a more streamlined approach to the story would have been of benefit. 

Impossible escapes are a solid subset of the thriller genre, but what makes Fall different than most is that this is not characters against nature, but rather characters against the consequences of their own poor actions.  These are supposed to be experienced climbers, yet there are so many basic things not done just so that they have more obstacles to face when they are stuck on top of the tower.  For starters, they lose so much credibility because they told no one their plans, except for a few quick check-ins on Instagram for Hunter’s followers.  Even before that, to take Becky, who has not climbed in a year, and bring her on this massive climb just reeks of irresponsibility, and while characters do not always need to make smart choices, Fall finds these heroines making too many poor decisions right off the bat to garner any of the necessary sympathies for them when they are stranded. 

With an incredibly flawed premise, the filmmaking is not totally without merit.  There are a few instances where MacGregor’s camera placement is able to create some genuine tension and thrills, but it feels very empty since there is little connection between the audience and the characters.  He uses the height of the tower to his advantage but does not become reliant on nauseating drone shots zooming up and down the tower.  That restraint makes the film far more pleasant to watch than other vertigo-inducing films in the genre.   

The problem that arises here, and throughout the entire film, is that the plot severely limits creativity on all fronts.  It finds the characters stranded with very little room to move around so the scenery seldom changes.  The vistas quickly lose their luster and once we become acclimated with the small platform at the top of the tower, it begins to lose its feeling of danger, too.  With the threat of a titular fall only vaguely looming, the film finds itself falling into an incredibly stale and stagnant place.  A few narrative twists late in the film help it save some face, but it is too little too late to make a strong recovery.  Some of these issues are no doubt byproducts of a Covid production, but instead of finding creative solutions to the protocols, Fall went the easy and lazy route and the result is a lackluster and boring attempt at a high-stakes, life-and-death thriller.