From Academy Award winning director, Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire") comes the true story of outdoor enthusiast, Aron Ralston. James Franco plays Ralston, who one weekend goes out for a climb in the beautiful Utah desert. The day starts off great, as he bikes down scenic mountain paths and unexpectedly befriends two vacationing young women who he spends the afternoon with sight-seeing and cliff-diving. Then his excursion takes a harrowing turn when he falls from sliding rock and gets his arm pinned between a cliff wall and a large boulder. Now, Aron must fight to stay alive long enough to figure out a way to free himself. I found this film to be quite a departure from Boyle's other work, in that his movies tend to be either colorful, larger-than-life tales with triumphant endings (a la "Slumdog" and "Millions"), or gritty/thriller/horror stories with astute observations of modern-day society (a la "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later"). This story (adapted from an autobiographical book), while quite fascinating, doesn't really translate well into a movie. Ralston's story is gripping, and it's absolutely amazing what he has to resort to in order to save his own life. But being trapped down in that dark crevice with Ralston for 94 minutes borders on the obscene. I could see this story as a short segment that is redramatized on a "Ripley's Believe It or Not" type show (narrated in a Robert Stack-like voice), but can't really find any justification for it as a feature-length film. Franco, to his credit, portrays Ralston as a goofy and likable guy, and when he is experiencing this trauma you are right there with him squirming uncomfortably in your seat. And the cinematography is beautiful, with amazing wide shots of the gorgeous, photogenic Utah landscape. But unless you're up for the grisly climax, filmed in all its shockworthy, gruesomely gratuitous glory, then I'd say skip the movie and maybe read the book instead.
2 out of 5 stars
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