Rock around the clock

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2012)

'Touching the Void' and 'Between a Rock and a Hard Place' are two of the great stories of wilderness adventures gone wrong. But whereas the former was always going to make a great film, the latter (the inspiration for '127 hours') is more problematic, because of the static nature of the tale (basically, a man gets trapped beneath a rock). However, the Utah scenery is gorgeous, James Franco is note perfect as the initially rather arrogant young man who has the courage not to die, and director Danny Boyle, whose films I don't always admire, makes a good fist at finding cinematic ways to chart his protagonist's increasingly desperate state of mind. Almost inevitably, though, as a film about being stuck, it drags a little, before it's amazing, horrific yet wonderful end.