Directed by: Danny Boyle
Starring: James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn
While exploring a canyon, Franco has his arm trapped under a boulder, hallucinates, drinks his piss, tries to have a wank, and eventually cuts his arm off.
"127 Hours" is essentially the story of an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. Unfortunately this film's focus is on the man rather than the situation. No attempt is ever really made to generate drama or suspense from Franco's plight. This is probably just as well given his lack of dramatic range. Franco always just seems to have a dumb, perpetually stoned look on his face, making it impossible to feel any of the anguish his character would be going through. Let's be blunt, this movie is about a guy who has to cut his arm off. The whole movie should be building us up to this inevitability, instead it's thrown in like an afterthought at the movie's climax.
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To pad out the running time we get a series of memories/hallucinations which merely give us crumbs of the characters life rather than a narrative like Boyle's oscar hit "Slumdog Millionaire". I hated that movie because I found it so contrived and here it seems like Boyle is going completely in the other direction, giving us no real story to get involved in whatsoever.
It reminds me of the detestable "Into The Wild", another story of an unlikable fool outdone by nature. In that movie Sean Penn portrayed his protagonist as a rebel, someone who wanted to escape society. Here Boyle opens and closes with Koyaanisqatsi style shots of crowds swarming through subways and sports stadiums. His protagonist wants to escape all that, well off you go, you won't be missed.
2/10
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