There’s a strip-tease aspect to watching “127 Hours,” the new film from Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle. We all know what’s coming, but we’re not sure when and we need to sit through a great deal of build-up before we get there.
What’s coming is the resourceful amputation of a forearm, as famously executed by stranded hiker Aron Ralston in 2003. Ralston was wandering alone through Utah’s Canyonlands National Park when he fell into a crevice and had his right hand pinned by a heavy boulder; in order to save his own life, he had to sever the limb between his elbow and his wrist.
Does this sound like a movie to you? It did to Boyle, the clever and hyperactive Brit whose jumpy style is either a symptom of attention-deficit disorder or a sign of his playfulness. Or possibly both.
James Franco plays Ralston as a 21st-century American goofball, the kind of guy who does crazy stuff for no other reason than it feels good at that exact moment. The movie gives this loose-limbed character some credit, though: He also knows how to use his hiking equipment and he’s willing to do the inevitable.
The actual, ah, cutting only consumes five minutes or so of screen time. (And for that brevity, thank you; some folks at early showings were reported to have fainted while watching the ordeal.)
Most of the movie is build-up, as Ralston treks through the desert, briefly plays with a couple of hikers (Kate Mara and Amber Tamblyn), and then takes a wrong step.
If the film sounds static, think again. Boyle flashes back, forward, runs clips on Ralston’s video camera and all but creates music videos through his usual kind of mix-tape approach to the soundtrack.
Well, all right, maybe this is the way someone’s mind would work if he were stuck in a hole for a few days. But it also feels like the director attempting to generate some hyped-up energy when faced with a storytelling limitation.
It’s a strange film to sit through, both inventive and annoying, sometimes within the same scene.
The final sequence has some actual power, but I couldn’t help thinking that most of the movie would play better with fewer gimmicky mannerisms.
James Franco’s best example of this kind of hang-loose dude was in “Pineapple Express,” but he certainly gives himself over to Ralston’s soul-searching here. He’s got the advantage over Ryan Reynolds in “Buried,” another film about a man stuck in a tight space: at least Franco gets to be in the light. It’s been a rough year on leading men.
“127 Hours”
James Franco plays Aron Ralston, the hiker who got trapped during a solo trek in 2003 and was forced to cut off his arm to save his life. “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle gives this seemingly static subject his sometimes annoyingly hyperactive approach, all of which (with Franco’s performance) builds to a powerful ending.
Rated: R for violence, language, subject matter
Showing: Guild, Meridian
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