Fox Searchlight

R 93 min

OK gang this one’s the last of the nominations and I caught it just under the wire.

To be honest I really didn’t want to see it at all, but I’d mistakenly doubted director Danny Boyle before with SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, and again the guy knows his stuff. (I was gonna say “craft” but that phrase has always sounded so damn pretentious…)

Anyway there’s not much to the plot.

Aron Ralston (James Franco) is a thrill seeker and a daredevil.

He loves treacherous treks up mountains and down ravines like I love drinking at microbreweries. On one of these excursions our cocky young protagonist winds up stuck in a crack, his right arm pinioned immovably in the narrow chasm.

That’s it.

He’ll be stuck there for, you guessed it, one hundred and twenty seven long hours.

Can you say “claustrophobia?”

On top of that we know Ralston will eventually escape as this tale is his own story.

So how in the hell can do you hold an audiences attention for an hour and a half with basically one shot? One might think Boyle would need to fill most of the time with flashback and side story but amazingly keeps the focus nearly constantly on the subject at hand.

I was hooked after ten minutes.

Not since CUJO has there been a one-perspective feature as riveting as 127 HOURS and Boyle has done an outstanding job keeping the pace up. Franco does a hell of a job as well.

B+

WSS

Email westsidesteve@aol.com