127 Hours

Starring James Franco
Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, Danny Boyle
Based on true events
Directed by Danny Boyle
website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/127hours/

Rated R for for language and some disturbing violent content/bloody images. 93 minutes

Let us begin with a true-life Cranky story.

Once Upon A Time an Average Joe went a-walin'g towards his job. Nothing different that day, except that he crossed the street early in the walk to look at the cars in a Manhattan (NYC) showroom window. "I'll need a car in LA," he thought. His move to LA was six weeks off and he had no job or job prospects there. That's why he was lookinjg at Bentley's and Rolls-Royce's.

He picked a grey Bentley as car-of-choice, walked to the street corner and waited at the red light. He didn't hear the bveep of the truck horn way behind him, as it barrelled down Second Avenue without working brakes. The pedestrian got his green and made it halfway across the street when the streetlamp which had stopped the truck came whipping down like one of those kung fu fighting sticks, smashing his skull down onto his neck and breaking the latter. Over the next two years the neck would have to be broken two more times, for medical reasons, and the guy would beat four different kinds of paralysis. To this day, twenty two years later, he's still walking and working relatively fine.

Why haven't you seen this as a movie? Because, as the Hollywood suits said, "There's no story." That brings us back to 127 Hours, in which a dumb yutz goes spelunking without telling anyone or bringing a second boday along, just in case.

"Just in case" is the applicable phrase as one bad step leads to a fall which pins our heroic yutz deep in the earth. All alone.

Just like Cranky's Life In Hell, the accident is true. And, just like me, there is no story in 127 Hours to hold you in your seat until the resolution. We don't know a soul that doesn't know the end of the film walking in, but we won't say (just in case). We will say that those who are overly sensitive may want to look away when certain sequences get graphically gruesome.

We're such teasers . . .

Lack of story aside, Actor James Franco (recreating the experience of the real life yutz, Aron Ralston) will get an Oscar® nomination from those that stayed in their seats. 127 Hours is built for that kind of Oscar® grab (no diss to Franco) that actors dream of. A role in which they can strut their stuff and knock the socks off the critical numbskulls in the audience.

Sorry, folks, Cranky can't be honest and reliable about a movie like 127 Hours. If we fall down in just the right way we'll nbe quadriplegic for the rest of our life. We live with that every day. It's not a great comparison but it's all we can offer.

We're just not the kind of critic you want to be watching a film like 127 Hours. For those seeking lots of story, 127 Hours is slim pickings. For those whoi want to watch a fine performance, 127 Hours offers one that you'll hear about again come Oscar® time.

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