127 Hours (2010)

Directed by Danny Boyle. Starring James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn, Clémence Poésy, Treat Williams. [R]

While hiking in Utah, climber Aron Ralston (Franco) finds himself literally trapped between a rock and a hard place when his arm gets pinned against a canyon wall by a boulder, and he ends up stuck in a desperate situation for 127 agonizing hours. Most moviegoers already knew the harrowing true story before they watched this dramatization (based on Ralston’s memoir), and co-writer/director Danny Boyle plays on our awareness of what’s going to happen without belaboring the suspense—every jump and skip the cocky young man makes over and down into crevices until his fateful fall is bound to keep you edging forward in your seat, and the squeamish will have their hands ready to cover their eyes when the young man gets to the gouging, snapping and severing (heck, not just the squeamish—even gorehounds are bound to wince and fidget). Boyle’s nervy, caffeinated filmmaking style is sometimes too flashy for its own good, though, and it weakens the material during the most despairing chapter of Ralston’s ordeal—aside from bleak camcorder confessionals (which work more because of how somberly introspective Franco’s performance becomes), little in the mood or aesthetics matches the desolation the mountaineer must’ve felt while being pushed toward the unthinkable, and the flashbacks/hallucinations come as head rushes instead of haunting regrets. Indeed, for a movie about a guy trapped in one spot for more than five days straight, the tempo borders on the frenzied; staves off the doldrums, sure, but also keeps the viewer at arm’s length from Ralston’s interior spaces too often. Ralston cameos as himself at the every end; Lizzy Caplan makes a very brief appearance.

76/100