Stuck Between A Rock And, Well, Another Rock
Aron Ralston is an outdoorsman who really enjoys exploring the vast canyons of Utah. One day he sets out alone, without having told anyone of his plan, to hike around Blue John. After bumping into a couple of new explorers and spending some time with them, Ralston continues his trek alone when an accident occurs that sends him falling down into a tight crevice and with half of his right arm literally stuck between the canyon wall and a boulder that dislodged and fell along with him. No one can hear him scream and he has no means of communicating with anyone. Frustrated, he tries to pull his arm free but it is stuck in the worst of ways. He begins to calm himself and think about what he has on him to keep him alive and as comfortable as possible.
The accident occurs around fifteen minutes into the film and it’s a ninety-four minute piece, so the actual 127 hours are given due focus. You’ll witness Ralston struggle to not only survive, but to stay sane. As the days wear on and his rations disappear, the cold and darkness continue to wear away his spirit. He begins to hallucinate and his self-recordings on his pocket video camera become less and less optimistic. I thought Franco did a great job showing how Ralston would experience a range of emotion at first, but as the situation grew only more dire, his capacity for life and optimism dwindled. His visions, or hallucinations, ultimately give him strength to make a very dramatic and difficult decision that is his only means of escape.
Even after escape, he isn’t safe though, and for the last bit of the film we witness his final struggles before reaching safety. This is one of those movies where you know the ultimate outcome, but the journey of getting there is gripping. In an odd way, it reminded me of Phone Booth. You’re talking about a film that is primarily focused on one man, stuck in one area, and with intense decisions and drama happening at nearly all times.
This movie was directed by Danny Boyle, who also directed Slumdog Millionaire. I thought Boyle and his crew did a superb job from the make-up to the cinematography. For the most part, the gorgeous landscape shines beautifully in HD. Some of the early scenes where Ralston is just getting started on his trek features some outstanding scenes of the brown canyon and the blue skies. The actual crevice, which is the location for probably eighty-five percent of the movie, was actually faithfully recreated as a set and it too looks very good. As for technical quality, the image rarely suffers, although a couple of scenes early on in the crevice look speckled and dirty. Other than that, I thought the film was very clean and the 5.1 DTS-HD audio did not disappoint.
There are several good extra features included. A Digital Copy disc, if you want to call that an extra (I wouldn’t), is packed alongside the Blu-ray. The extras on the Blu-ray are:
-Audio Commentary with Director/Co-Screenwriter Danny Boyle, Producer Christian Colson and Co-Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy.
-Deleted Scenes (34m, HD) – Seven deleted scenes — the longest of which is a twenty-one minute extended, alternate ending — are included but I think Boyle made a good choice to leave all of these scenes out.
-Search & Rescue (15m, HD) – I thought this was very interesting as it includes interviews with the Search and Rescue team from 2003 that participated in the search for Ralston and you hear from Ralston as well.
-127 Hours: An Extraordinary View (35m, HD) – Production footage and interviews with Franco and Boyle.
With that, lets get to the summary…