Possibly James Franco's best movie yet

Rating: 9/10 (6 December 2014)

Danny Boyle's 127 Hours is the true story of hiker and climber Aron Ralston (James Franco), who spent five days pinned under a boulder at the bottom of a narrow canyon, cut off his arm with a pocket knife, and lived to tell the tale. As you might guess, it is extremely graphic, even disturbing. But even though Aron spends almost 90% of the movie under that boulder, it is never boring. The acting, direction, and editing are such that even when nothing is happening physically, there is something to watch.
That sentence may not seem to make sense at first, so let me explain. Aron's may be trapped bodily, but not mentally, and where-ever his mind goes, we go. Every memory, every hallucination, every vision of what the rest of the world must be doing, we're there for. And through these flashes and snippets, we learn more than if we'd seen the entire previous week of his life. Plus, as in Castaway, he has something to talk to; in this case his camcorder. Trapped, with no hope of rescue and no reason to believe he'll live, he fully bares his soul to the camera, and by extension, us.
His hope and determination, his fear and despair, his past regrets, his struggle to come to terms with his present circumstances, and his growing detachment from reality are all recorded for us to see. The imaginary call-in show near the end is a masterpiece in itself. And even in the sections with no dialogue, Franco's face expressions cue you in on what's happening inside. His mouth and eyes convey an incredible range of emotions and states of mind. Franco has shown himself to be a good actor in the Spider-man trilogy and the highly underrated The Great Raid, now he shows himself to be a great actor.
Although I don't usually do so, I feel I would be amiss if I did not spend some time on the editing and cinematography. The camera work is absolutely amazing. The movie uses long pans, slow zoom outs, rapid tracking shots, and shaky first person footage to capture the beauty and harshness of the desert, give a sense of scale and distance, and lend an authentic, home movie type quality respectively. Frequent use of split screen footage allows us to see the Aron's predicament from every angle, and to simultaneously perceive the reality of the canyon and what's taking place in his mind. And through blurred shots and rapid montages we gain insight into his increasing delirium.
The audio quality is exceptional as well. Whispered comments and the clinking off his knife against the rock are just loud enough to be clearly audible. The cracking of bones and Aron's screams for help are by contrast almost overpowering, and the crackling of thunder is ear-splitting. Which brings me to the special effects; there aren't many of them, but they're very good. The thunder I just mentioned signals the beginning of the best rainstorm I've seen in any film not by Kurosawa. I'm talking buckets upon buckets, a deluge of Biblical proportions. And I don't know how the makeup artists do it, but Franco absolutely looks like he has only one arm in the final segment.
I don't know if there's anything more to be said. 127 Hours is not action packed by any stretch of the imagination. It is not romantic, it is not funny except for parts where you laugh so that you do not cry, and it is certainly not for the faint of heart. But it is moving, inspiring, and a truly great tale of one man's incredible will to survive.