Renny Harlin’s Fascination with Heroic Failure

“He’s going to save her,” my dad whispered to me. We were sitting in a movie theater in 1993. I was nine years old, watching one of my favorite actors on the big screen. Sylvester Stallone — Rocky and Rambo himself, in all his bulging, sweaty glory. America’s hero in his new blockbuster, Cliffhanger, was …