127 Hours (5/5 Stars)

A fatal mistake and plenty of time to think about it.

Life moves fast for most of us and it can sometimes be hard to find a decent amount of time for self-reflection. A chance to slow down, take stock of your life, and learn from your mistakes might just be a blessing in disguise. Some people find that a stint in prison is just what they needed. Aron Ralston has just found himself in such a situation as well. He is in the midst of a life-changing experience, if only he can survive it.

I suppose most people walking into the theater will already know the true story of Aron Ralston, an engineer who was hiking in the Arizona desert when a falling boulder pinned his arm against a canyon wall. Unable to lift the boulder and not having told anybody where he was, he was trapped and helpless for 127 hours. And then he decided to cut off his arm and hike back without it. So he did. This is that story.

“127 Hours,” was directed by Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) and stars James Franco in what is basically a one-man show. The story itself is very limited (Franco unable to move for a long time) but the way it is told is fresh and energetic. Danny Boyle does his usual incredibly innovative editing and camera techniques. My favorite sequence is when Boyle starts at Franco and takes the camera on a fast forward pace through the canyon back to his car and zooms in on the full bottle of Gatorade resting very peacefully in the back. It would be a good idea to bring some water to this movie. You will feel thirsty. James Franco does an incredible job as well. You should go to this movie just to see the look on his face the first couple of seconds after the boulder pins his shoulder. It’s all right there. His life is flashing before his eyes. He will probably get nominated for this role. I never saw “Buried” with Ryan Reynolds, but I would think that these two movies ought to be seen together. Then you can debate who gives the better performance. (By the way, James Franco is one of my heroes. The guy already had a successful career but went back to graduate school at Columbia to get a Masters of Fine Arts. Why? For fun. He’s now working on a P.H.D. in English at Yale. What a cool guy.)

At its most basic level, “127 Hours” is a procedural movie. It treats the dilemma of being stuck between a rock and a hard place not as melodrama but as a problem to be solved. It helps that the real Aron Ralston was an engineer because it allowed his character to be very ingenious about his predicament. He constructs a pulley system, he tries his best to get warm at night, he rations his water, and after awhile he starts to wonder what is the best way to go about cutting off his arm. It also helps that he has brought along his video camera because that way he can explain to us exactly what his plans are. At one point he logically states why he knows that he will be dead before anyone finds him and what, from an engineering standpoint, he will need to get the boulder off his arm. At one point I was reminded of that great scene in “Apollo 13,” when the rocket scientists are asked to figure out how to get a square box in a circular cylinder only using socks and other things in the capsule. This movie is exceedingly interesting from an intellectual point of view. If you are an engineer, you probably will love it.

Then there are those scenes where Franco dwells on all the mistakes he’s made. He forgot his Swiss Army Knife, he didn’t return his mom’s phone call, he didn’t tell the guy at his work where he was going. Then he has even more time to think. He regrets a break up with a girl who said she loved him on a magical night. He apologizes to everyone about everything on the video recorder. He hallucinates and sees his family and friends sitting on a couch and staring at him so very far close and yet so very far away. There’s nothing quite like having a near-death experience to really clear the mind.

It’s true that there is a grisly scene where Franco cuts through his arm, and yes it is graphic and painful to watch. But there is a huge difference between watching this and watching something like “Saw,” or other gruesome horror movies. When you watch “Saw” you really don’t want to see limbs getting hacked off and that’s why it should scare you when it happens (or you do and then I suppose you’d like this movie just for that scene). But in this movie, by the time Franco gets around to cutting off his arm, you want him to do it. I know by that point I was like, “Fuck the arm. Get the hell out of there.” I really doubt Ralston misses it as well. He’s probably just happy to be alive. We all should be.