Overview: 'The Climb' is a hilarious - and oftentimes awkward - examination of the toxic lifelong friendship of Mike and Kyle.

While Kyle is kind, and a bit of a pushover, Mike is a train wreck, who despite his affection for Kyle, seems to sabotage all of Kyle’s relationships.

Told through a series of vignettes, Kyle struggles to deal with the fact that his best friend might just be the worst person for him.

DVD Verdict: Biking thru the French countryside, Mike waits for a grueling climb to offhandedly mention his affair with Kyle's wife to be.

Struggling to keep pace, a stunned Kyle is furious and winds up running up the hill to confront his soon to be ex-best man. Soon they are in hospital, where things spiral further out of control!

This orchestrated moment of comedic tragedy defines their lifelong relationship, and a rather enjoyable film, if truth be told.

Co-stars and co-writers Kyle Marvin and Michael Covino (who also directs), pull off their push pull brotherly love-hate relationship effortlessly enough to raise suspicion these may not be fictional events.

As the obvious heel in the picture, Mike revisits his childhood buddy from time to time, wreaks havoc to whatever situation he insists himself in, tries to make misguided amends, then disappears until his next untimely resurrection.

A hard character to love, an easy one to punch, Mike does sprinkle a few redeeming qualities to always leave a crack in the door. Everyone knows someone like this, or knew.

The human nature of second chances is put to the test: who opens that crack, and who slams it shut?

Ambitiously shot in several long take chapters, 'The Climb' has a down to earth, visceral quality which makes entry into the complicated and inviting Kyle and Mike dynamic an easy one.

And therein lies the films genuine genius as it is able to pack its story into such a concise runtime because of the way it uses organic dialogue to such great effect throughout.

As we jump through time between different vignettes, the screenplay explains what has happened in the last few years or however long with just a couple of words offhand from a character that feels entirely natural to the situation at hand.

There's no clunky exposition or drawn-out narration, but rather succinct and brilliantly organic dialogue that helps what could have been a regularly abrupt series of time shifts flow so nicely.

That structural flow is also helped by the movie's camerawork, which pulls the Birdman trick of using those aforementioned long, long, long takes where the camera flies around the characters for minutes on end without a single cut.

In closing, 'The Climb' is just that, the hill of life everyone struggles with, and sometimes, no matter how potentially destructive, friendship is all anyone craves. Oh, and a rather fetching soundtrack doesn't hurt either, of course. [JS] This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Filmmaker Commentary
Original Short Film
Deleted & Alternate Scenes, and More!

'The Climb' us available on Digital, DVD and Blu-ray January 19th, 2021.