Stylish

Rating: 6/10 (7 November 2011)

Once again, Danny Boyle shows that he has quite a lot of style. His talent for creating memorable images, powerful compositions and suspenseful, energetic shots is stronger on 127 Hours than it was on any of his films since Trainspotting. Cinematically, 127 Hours is a very solid piece, beautifully shot and edited, and complimented by a marvelous performance from Franco.
And yet, at the same time, Boyle also shows just how incompetent he is at constructing a coherent and well-paced film. The chaos that worked for Trainspotting did not work well on any of his other works, and it fails here too. The biggest problem 127 has is that it begins and ends at the middle. We get no character development, no structure, no build-up, no satisfying ending - we're expected to get into the action right away, and just as quickly the film ends seconds after the climax. For that reason 127 feels more like a music video than a film. It has no real characters; the few flashbacks the protagonist has seem like a pretty lame cover-up for that fact, giving him a background and a family as generic as possible.
It's pretty shocking, in fact, that a story this dark and shocking can eventually feel so light on film. Despite the grimness of the whole situation, it feels like a lighter version of Into the Wild. Which is why, as powerful as the film is while you're watching it, it leaves absolutely no lasting impression - which is criminal for a story like this. It's probably a good thing that it's short then, because it's just long enough to enjoy the visuals and Franco's acting, to be mildly shocked the way you would be at a news broadcast, and then to move on with your life.