127 Hours - Oops!

 (2010) ★★★★☆

If you haven't read Aron Ralston's 'Between A Rock And A Hard Place', you'd definitely love this film, and be freaked out to find out that there's indeed nothing more powerful than a man's will to survive. And even if you have, you'd love it too, because you'd be amazed to see, like the director Danny Boyle described in an interview, 'an action movie with a guy who can't move'.

I guess it must be difficult to shoot a film that deals with only one location and one man for most of the time. Yet it doesn't drag at all. This is a pretty fast-paced film with gripping moments, as well as entertaining elements that would probably make you laugh from time to time. Right, '127 Hours' is not a painful, gross film to check out though it involves a lot of pain indeed.

Confidence is a good thing. Of course it can be a bad, when you over use it. It'll lead you to an oops moment like what happened to Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, who was trapped by a boulder in a canyon as his only chance to live was to cut his arm off. Oops! He didn't bring a cell phone. He didn't tell anyone where he was heading before setting out. He didn't bring much food and drink either because he was confident that his adventure would simply be nice and short. And most frustratingly he forgot to bring a sharp Swiss knife. He only had a blunt made-in-China one with him. Oops!

So what would you do under such circumstances? Would you cut your arm off with a tiny blunt knife to live, or would you just give up and die and rot there? The thing is, if you choose to cut your arm off, the pain will probably make you faint, and you'll die from too much blood loss. So it's pretty much like a bet. You'd die anyways if you're not lucky, but luck is not the point here. The point is, dare you to risk, to bet, to do your best to try to get out, before leaving the rest to God? Although destiny seems fixed sometimes, remember, how to react to it is all up to you.

I'm impressed by Aron Ralston's courage to amputate his arm and his determination to live (while we're apt to do the opposite in oops moments). I'm impressed by Danny Boyle's ingenious direction and his choice of music for the film. I'm also impressed by James Franco's outstanding performance. But I'm kind of frustrated with the reason why we're impressed by Aron Ralston's story. Because people like him are few.