The Walk (2015) - Walk On!

★★★★☆

‘The Walk’ is of a single event but it spends two-thirds of the time explaining why it’s being done and how it’s supposed to be done. Don’t get it wrong. I’m not complaining it. In fact, the film sets it up so well that it doesn’t feel much like a more-than-two-hour tedious drama but the narrative does seem dragged out and over-explained a bit. The final scene of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Philippe Petit performing stunning acrobatics on a thin wire across the top of the Twin Towers is nevertheless, breathtaking and jaw-dropping. You could get a heart attack for real if you have acrophobia! Most of Director Robert Zemeckis’s works are able to impress and amaze me in a sense. ‘Contact’ is the best! ‘The Walk’ belongs to the second best category like ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Cast Away’ and ‘Flight’.

The film’s based on a true story that took place in New York, 1974. Knowing it gives you more thrills because you just can’t help but wonder how come a guy like you and me wants to do something so terribly dangerous and insane. But his answer is plain and simple! It’s because it’s life itself, and so beautiful like a dream come true! Most of the people just don’t get it huh? How could something so insanely dangerous be so superbly beautiful? How could it be like entering a peaceful void while wire-walking so high up there in the air, instead of being scared to shit?

Well, the truth is not that difficult to see though. You don’t get it because you’re not Philippe Petit himself. It’s some kind of courage, persistence, madness that you can’t possibly seem to get unless you get to do and feel it yourself. ‘The Walk’ works as a reminder that sometimes we all need this sort of madness to be able to overcome our fears for the unknown and mostly death, and walk on!