Telling the same story as, but not officially based on, Jon Krakauer’s best-selling book “Into Thin Air,” the film presents conditions that led to the deaths of eight Mount Everest climbers on May 10, 1996. Krakauer is present as a character (Michael Kelly) there to write an article for Outside magazine. Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), a seemingly all-around great guy, runs Adventure Consultants, and he’s helped out most importantly by logistics* coordinator Helen (Emily Watson), and guide and close friend Guy (Sam Worthington). Aside from Krakauer, among those arriving from distant places are Beck (Josh Brolin), a big-talking Texan; Doug (John Hawkes), a mailman who failed to make it up on a previous attempt*, and Yasuko (Naoko Mori), a Japanese woman who has scaled* the highest mountains on every other continent. Two competing guides who will be leading groups up on the same day are American hippie Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Russian Anatoli Boukreev (Ingvar Sigordsson), a military-style tough guy who refuses to use supplementary* oxygen. The starting off point for the summit seekers is Katmandu. Krakauer had thought to focus his Outside piece on the downsides of Everest tourism and the film doesn’t shy away* from highlighting the bad effects of overcrowding, not only at the camps but on the path to the summit. Based on weather forecasts, all the tour guides have decided to make the final ascent* on the same day. Cooperation is useful up to a point, but once you get up to Hillary’s Step, the final 12-meter wall approachable only by a narrow passage where one slowpoke* can cause a major jam, overcrowding becomes an issue. An unexpected storm arrives as the first climbers arrive on the tiny precipice*, while many more are lined up single file on the narrow path waiting their turns. The cast is rock-solid, and the only thing one might have wished for is the foregrounding of one or two of the sherpa guides, who are around but not much integrated into the main action. (SD-Agencies) | 