Story: The film is based on the real-life adventure of Aron Ralston, as documented in the book Between A Rock And A Hard Place. The extreme biker and climber met with a freak accident in 2003 when his hand got trapped under a boulder during a climbing expedition in Utah. The mountaineer spent five grueling days all by himself in this life-threatening situation before he could extricate himself and reach out for help.
Movie Review: After Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle has almost become a homeboy. Everybody knows Danny. Everybody loves Danny. Everybody expects a lot from Danny. And Danny rarely disappoints !!!
It's easy to understand why. Because, like Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Nolan and the rest of the mavericks, Danny Boyle has evolved a film narrative that is unique, diverse and hard to replicate. Like the other indie folks, Danny too takes up an ordinary story to re-tell it in an extraordinary fashion. So, if Slumdog Millionaire re-invents the Mumbai metaphor like never before, then 127 Hours transforms the adventure/disaster story into a hard-hitting steroid shot.
At its centre is a magnificent performance from James Franco, who's alone for most of the film with just a few brief flashbacks to his family life, and some hallucinations and imaginings to get away from and intensify his existential agony. Franco's Ralston is a complex figure: resilient, thoughtful, and wryly humorous.
The genius of Boyle transforms this simple, one-dimensional human survival story into a nerve-wracking drama that never lets you leave the edge of the chair from the very first shot. So what if the film opens with Aron having harmless fun, diving and swimming with two pretty young strangers in the deserted landscape. You always know there's danger lurking behind the next boulder, because the film's stunning camera angles, crisp editing and scintillating music (A R Rahman) create an adrenalin rush right from the word Go.
127 Hours is shot with a gripping camera work(Anthony Dodd Mantle) on James Franco, which undoubtedly could make this role as one of his biggest. The movie shows the lead heading and jumping and crashing into rugged terrains, until he meets with the fateful accident. The camera not just manages to capture the astounding beauty of the area under Boyle, but also brings to life the minute feelings which Aron had felt as hours ticked into days, and he waited for freedom under desperation.
Boyle tells this claustrophobic story with such visual and dramatic zeal that in the end, it amounts to so much more than just the horror of that amputation. Indeed the image that ultimately chokes you up isn’t that of the blade slicing through flesh, but of Ralston seeing help in the end and finding his voice to call for it.
James Franco delivers a performance nothing short of spellbinding. He sheds off his regular image and becomes Ralston. In one of movie’s funniest scenes, he impersonates a radio broadcast, during which he himself does all the voices. That’s a marvelous written scene and Franco lives up to it completely.
The Oscar nominations aren't the only reason why you must not miss 127 Hours. You get to discover James Franco in a whole new light, even as Rahman showcases his international flavor, once again. But more than all this, the film is a high-spirited salute to the stubborn human spirit and a grand demonstration of courage and true grit. Chilling, thrilling and horrifying too, 127 Hours is riveting cinema.
All in all, 127 Hours is one of the year's most powerful and moving films. DON’t MISS IT!!!!
