127 HOURS

This movie is a claustrophobic immersion into a slot canyon where we watch James Franco with his forearm pinned by a boulder spend 5 days before he cut through his arm and rappel'd down canyon walls and walked the desert floor till he was rescued by hikers.

It is an amazing feat of endurance and fortitude to overcome the natural instinct to avoid ANY kind of pain; physical or psychological. That he was desperate enough and was determined enough to not give up and die of exposure and dehydration is heroic. This is a true story and the climber is now married and has a son. There were no pictures of him canyoneering post-amputation but there was of him skiing and climbing mts.

He also made a vow that he would always tell someone where he was going in the future.

The scenery was fantastic and the movie showed in exuberant but spare detail the self-confidence (cockiness?) and sense of adventurous risk that he has through scenes of him getting prepared to go on this trip into Blue John canyon in Utah and also his encounter with 2 other climbers before they left and he became trapped by a falling boulder.

Franco was just as good as Tom Hanks in the Castaway movie. When i saw that one I couldn't believe i could stay so interested for an hour or so watching one person interact with himself on an island. And it was the same way with this 127 Hours movie.

the only criticism i have is some of the hallucinating episodes that he experienced went on too long. And also the sentences at the end of the movie which told you follow-up info were in white and were superimposed (partly or wholly) on light backgrounds so i could barely read them. Poor editing job.

Oh and the music was horrid. way too loud; it tended to be competitive with the film's actions.