To the Limit

United by blood, rope and a serious adrenaline addiction, Thomas and Alexander Huber run up rocks the way some of us run up credit cards — rapidly, fearlessly and with little regard for consequences.
When we join them, these gnarly German risk fiends are in Yosemite National Park trying to break the speed-climbing record for the 3,000-foot face of El Capitan known as the Nose. Regular climbers average three to five days for the ascent; the brothers are aiming for two and a half hours.
“It’s a trip,” comments Chongo, a former climber whose eyes suggest more than a passing acquaintance with the term. Far above him the Hubers scurry sideways like long-haired spiders, navigate tiny pitons and air their fears and sibling rivalries. Sometimes they fall, and the camera coyly turns its attention to tumbling rocks, leaving us to ponder the marketability of an extreme sports movie without extreme accidents.
Looking backward, forward and within, “To the Limit” offers vertigo-inducing vistas (including picturesque detours to the Bavarian Alps and Patagonia), daredevil camerawork and a frustrating lack of personal background. (It’s left to the press notes to inform us that Thomas plays in a rock band and that Alexander is a physicist.) Yet this disorienting, dippy documentary makes one thing abundantly clear: for the Hubers, the toughest climb may be into their own heads.
Da The New York Times, 13 giugno 2008