Film Review

127 Hours

Starring: James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn, Treat Williams, John Lawrence, Kate Burton, Clémence Poésy

Directed By: Danny Boyle

Released By: 17th February 2011

Run Time: 94 mins.

Genre: Drama

"127 Hours" is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston's (James Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days, Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover he has the courage and the wherewithal to extricate himself by any means necessary, scale a 65-foot wall and hike over eight miles to seek help. Throughout his journey, Ralston recalls friends, lovers (Clemence Poesy), family, and the two hikers (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) he met before his accident. Will they be the last two people he ever had the chance to meet?

I started loving this film within the first few seconds. The movie has an energetic start with a split screen showing office-bound commuters and workers going along their daily drudge while our lead, x-treme biker/hiker/climber Aron Ralston (played by actor James Franco) packs his gear for a trek into Blue John Canyon country in Utah. While on his way he has a brief fun climbing/diving/swimming interlude with two female hikers. He then heads off on his own and at about 20 minutes into the movie takes a tumble with a small boulder that ends up pinning his right arm against the side wall of the thin crevice of a canyon. And that is where we are with him for the next "127 hours" that it takes him to get loose.

I'm not going to spoil that resolution here, although most will likely heard about it anyway before seeing the movie. 127 hours was a joyous, uplifting, spiritual movie experience. It had all the elements of what movie-making is about. It was a thriller, a drama, a romance, a horror, even comedy at some points all rolled into one. A keen, timeless message of what is it to be alive, of how blessed we all truly are, and of how reliant we are upon each other. In simple, this will be one of my favourite movie of 2011, and will certainly go down as one of my favourite movies of all time.