Franco riveting in '127 Hours'
="breakhead">Reel Life review: #8216;127 Hours'
Several viewers keeled over while watching Danny Boyle's fact-based drama at its Telluride Film Festival premiere earlier this year. That's actually a testimonial for Boyle's captivating survival movie and for James Franco's phenomenal performance as an adrenaline junkie rock climber who spent 127 hours with his arm crushed between rocks in the Utah desert mountains.
Watching a single actor remain stationary for an entire movie might sound horrendous. But as anyone who saw Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin in #8220;Buried#8221; can attest, outstanding dramas can take place in the tiniest of spaces.
Boyle continues to astonish his fans and critics with another movie that Monty Python members might call #8220;something completely different.#8221;
He earned best picture and director Oscars for his India-inspired #8220;Slumdog Millionaire.#8221; Before that, Boyle showed us viral Armageddon in #8220;28 Days Later,#8221; the scary final frontier of space in #8220;Sunshine,#8221; neo-noir thrills in #8220;Shallow Grave#8221; and a wondrous children's adventure in #8220;Millions.#8221;
Boyle isn't about to start boring anyone now. He starts #8220;127 Hours#8221; with a rockin', rollin' soundtrack under vintage 1960s split-screen visuals showing Franco's Aaron Ralston to be a loner and adventurer driven to finding that sweet spot called his comfort zone then diving merrily out of it.
Franco, perhaps best known as the Green Goblin's spawn in the #8220;Spider-man#8221; movies, morphs into his real-life character without any of the fuss and pretension that usually comes with his performances. (He played legendary poet Allan Ginsberg earlier this year in #8220;Howl.#8221;)
We instantly bond with Franco's climber, established as a genuine nice guy and climbing nut when he comes across two young, attractive lost women and spends the day with them, no strings attached.
But, like a classic tragic Greek hero who forgets his humility, Ralston makes a miscalculation and winds up in the bottom of a huge crevice in the rocks, his arm crushed under a boulder.
#8220;127 Hours#8221; takes viewers through Ralston's stages of denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance, all the time keeping the visuals fresh and urgent. The tight script (from Boyle and Simon Beaufoy) contains a surprising amount of humor, even though Ralston's situation appears catastrophic at every turn.
The water-parched Ralston begins hallucinating, first about his girlfriend, then about his family. Then, in the riskiest and most amazing segment, Ralston uses his camcorder (which the real Ralston had with him) to imagine himself on a TV talk show interviewing himself.
#8220;127 Hours#8221; isn't for sissies. It doesn't punk out on the impolite details of being trapped by rocks without a toilet or water supply.
It's still a life-affirming, classic tale of man vs. Mother Nature told with sincerity, clarity and style. And when Ralston finally realizes what he must do to survive, #8220;127 Hours#8221; doesn't punk out on that, either.
Bring the smelling salts.
#8220;127 Hours#8221; opens at the Century Centre in Chicago and the Evanston Century 18. Rated R for language, sexual situations and slight gore. 94 minutes.#9733; #9733; #9733; frac12;
="breakhead">#8216;Shot Out of Love' now
CNGM Pictures, the Northwest suburban indie film company put together by a group of friends from Palatine's Fremd High School, are today premiering their entry in this year's #8220;48 Hour Film Project#8221; (where filmmakers have 48 hours to shoot, edit and complete a movie).
#8220;Shot Out of Love#8221; concerns a young sales associate dumped just before Valentine's Day. So, she contemplates suicide. The film premieres online at shotoutoflove.com. For more info, go to cngmpictures. com.
bul; Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column appears Friday in Time out!