By James Franco
Buy new: $14.99
48 used and new from $9.09
Customer Rating:
First tagged by C. Powell "It's always sunny"
Customer tags: danny boyle(14), survival(13), james franco(11), thriller(11), aron ralston(9), adventure(8), lizzy caplan(5), kate mara(5), 127 hours(2), afghanistan(2), amazon error, amputation
Review & Description
From Academy Award®-winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) comes the powerfully uplifting true story of one man’s struggle to survive against mountainous odds. Aron Ralston (James Franco) has a passion for all things outdoors. But when a falling boulder traps him in a remote Utah canyon, a thrill-seeker’s adventure becomes the challenge of a lifetime. Over the next five days, Ralston embarks on a remarkable personal journey in which he relies on the memories of family and friends--as well as his own courage and ingenuity--to turn adversity into triumph! Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) is traipsing alone through Utah's Canyonlands National Park, minding his own sweet-natured, loosey-goosey business, when an errant step drops him into a crevasse. That in itself wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't managed to get his right hand stuck between a heavy boulder and the side of the cavern--a cavern that will be his grave, if he doesn't figure out how to get himself out. Danny Boyle's film of this real-life 2003 incident builds up to what we all know is going to happen: Ralston must sever his arm between his elbow and wrist, after a few long, lonely days of avoiding the idea. (Superb casual line delivery by Franco: "So I found this great tourniquet….") Because this is a film by the director of Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting, we can expect a barrage of visual high jinks, despite the fact that this story would seem to be a simple tale of a man stuck in the desert. Boyle deploys flashbacks and fantasies to fill up the screen, plus he gets some mileage out of Ralston's video camera--and, of course, this director can't resist juicing the soundtrack with pop tunes, from Sigur Rós to Edith Piaf to Slumdog composer A.R. Rahman. Maybe Boyle is simply hyperactive, or maybe he's really onto something about what would happen inside the mind of a man left in extremis for an extended period (who wouldn't have a few Boyle-esque hallucinations, under the circumstances?). The cumulative effect is overbearing, but Franco's performance is spirited and endearing--he makes Ralston sufficiently "of life" that you definitely don't want to see this goofball soul be lost. --Robert Horton Read more
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