127 Hours

Franco provides a nice performance but the movie is not that hooking and Boyle repeats his visual techniques once and again.

127 Hours depicts the true story of a guy named Aron Ralston, who went canyoneering in Utah in April 2003. Through a pretty serious event of misfortune, he gets trapped in a canyon by a boulder that pulverises his arm against the canyon wall; literally between a rock and a hard place. And, the desperate measures he resorts to in order to free himself. From a Hollywood perspective, this sounds like it could be turned into a wildly spectacular action film with a bold, heroic protagonist, hysterical relatives and "Where is my son? PLEASE FIND MY SON!!" (intense sobbing) - type of dialogue. Yes? No. Boy, am I glad this was directed by Danny Boyle... The man we all know for his raw, authentic film style. Instead of aforementioned blockbuster drama, he opted for an incredibly realistic, documentary-like film. 127 Hours starts off with no form of introduction whatsoever. We do not get to 'meet' Aron or any of his relatives. However, any such introduction quickly proves to be redundant as, over the fast-paced opening credits, we see Aron enthusiastically preparing for and taking off on a hiking trip (ignoring his mother's phone call in the process...), and there you have it: this is a 'too cool for school', overconfident adrenaline junkie, and that's all we need to know. This overconfidence gradually proves to be the source of pretty much all his problems, as it is later on revealed that Aron neglected to tell anyone where he was going... Oops.

Like I said, this film looks and feels very much like a documentary, like National Geographic made a big budget reconstruction of the event. The film makers' choice to cast James Franco was a very good one. He is simply amazing. Mind you – he is alone in this film for about 95% of the time. This requires an actor with the guts and skill to carry an entire film, and I must admit, Franco probably wouldn't have been my first choice. But – to my pleasant surprise – he pulls it off, and is actually very worthy indeed of his Oscar nom...

It was the borring movie I ever watch.

And I will not recomend anyone go see this.

I can certainly appreciate the lengths that those involved in 127 Hours went to. Being that the movie is 90% bottle-episode, wherein the lead doesn't even have the luxury of something as simple as being allowed to pace about, it's not unfair to say that 127 Hours doesn't have a whole lot going on. To try and inject a bit of life into it, director Danny Boyle throws in a number of unique filming styles, and I'll absolutely give props to him for that outside-the-box sort of thinking, but it doesn't actually change the fact that there's still not a whole lot going on. Franco is not a bad actor, but it's a big ask of someone to run something like this solo, and it ends up being a bigger one than he can fully manage. 127 Hours is not something I ever found fully engaging. Oft-intense, and kind of gross, but not fully engaging.

Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.

watch it at like 11yo.. ngl I had some scoobie-doo nightmare for a while (iykyk) but I otherwise enjoyed the movie a lot ! was scarred it would be the same stuff over and over but the in depth flashbacks doesn't allow this

You see, I always knew that physical exercise was a gangrenous game, and so had little sympathy with Aron Ralston (James Franco) when he dons a rucksack and heads off into the rocky desert for an hike. Along the way he takes some photographs, meets a couple of young ladies for a swim in a beautifully pristine blue grotto and then slips and falls down a crevasse where his arm becomes wedged by a fallen boulder. Try as he might, he cannot free himself and even resorts to trying to saw his own arm off - with a pen knife not a chainsaw, but with supplies running low and the baking heat during the day and chilly nights taking their toll, you have to wonder if the man has any chance of escaping at all. Franco and a growing sense of claustrophobia work well here as the man uses all his wits and survival instincts. The photography is astonishingly intimate, without ever giving us even the smallest hint as to where the camera is as it gets us into the thick of his nasty predicament. The dialogue isn’t the most important element here, but even what little there is works quite poignantly as records a video diary of his travails as he slowly loses the plot. It’s based on a true story, so maybe jeopardy isn’t its strongest point, either, but it’s still quite a fascinating look at just how weak and feeble man(kind) is when exposed to an unforgiving nature and the elements. Worth a look, but it’s not an easy film to watch at times: desperate times and all that.