OK.. let me start by saying this was a good movie, and I am glad I saw it. Franco deserved his Oscar nod. Before I go on, first a word of polite warning: In a bit, I'm going to share my own thoughts in depth, and I suspect they may not be popular. I think I hold a minority opinion on this one, and my reasons for posting this thread are simply to share my views and discuss the film. If you don't want to hear from someone who is going to criticize Aron Ralston, skip over this and move right on to posting up your own take on 127 HOURS! 
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I'm a Danny Boyle fan, and while I've at times been cool to Franco's charms, here he made for a fairly compelling lead. It was an exciting movie, and visually dynamic given the fact that the main character was stuck under a rock for most of the running time... but for whatever reason I came away more pissed off than energized. More aggravated than enlightened. I feel bad for picking on an amputee who suffered through what was no doubt an horrific ordeal, but this Ralston character comes off as a happy fool, not a stoic survivor. I got the feeling that I was supposed to find his journey affirming or inspiring in some way, but instead I felt like he was making decisions that directly imperiled his life at every turn, deluding himself until it became clear his delay tactics were leading to his imminent death. Yes, I've never been in a life or death survival situation, and yes, I'm sure it's tough to face the choice to cut off your arm... but that choice should have been obvious to him within 20 minutes of being stuck. I'm something of a Bear Grylls devotee, and if Ralston had seen but a single episode of MAN VS WILD, he'd have known that he was making enormously terrible decisions from the outset, dramatically lowering his chances for survival as a result. Instead of feeling like Ralston possessed any particularly virulent breed of courage, I was left with the impression that his refusal to confront the reality of his situation needlessly put him at death's doorstep. Bear wouldn't have liked this movie, let's put it that way
The second you become trapped/stranded? You have a decision that must IMMEDIATELY be made. Are the odds of a rescue better than your odds of survival should you attempt to flee on your own? If you're trapped on a desert island (or beneath a large rock), you have limited supplies of food, water and strength. If it seems unlikely you'll be rescued by an outside force in time to save your life, the ONLY choice is to make a break for it ASAP. From the moment you become stuck, your physical condition begins to decline and that deterioration will only accelerate in time. You will never be as healthy/strong as you are at the moment you become stuck, and the longer you put off the tough choices the weaker you'll be when it comes time to act. The first thing he should have done was to realize that rescue was unlikely, that he still had a 20 mile hike back to safety to deal with even after he freed himself, and that his body needed to be in peak form for him to survive such an ordeal. He has extremely limited water and food, and there was the very real risk that should he begin the amputation in an already weakened state, he could pass out and bleed to death and die. Therefore it's key to begin the procedure immediately. Even waiting till the next morning posed risks (the cold stone would sap energy from his body leaving him frail), but I can understand the desire to at least see if a pulley system could be successfully rigged before he started hacking into his own limb. When that failed though? There was no longer an excuse to put it off. Ralston waited till he was on deaths door, and only decided to chop off his arm when he sensed the end was imminent. This was not the course of action of a brave and canny adventurer, this was the last refuge of a man backed into a corner like a scared animal, no longer able to delude himself there were any other options
Boy howdy did he try though.. he waited an inexplicable ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN HOURS till his food and water supplies were gone and his knife had been worn to a nub before he steeled himself for the inevitable. For this viewer, the movie became a grueling slog waiting for this guy to face up to reality and take the only logical choice left to him. Instead we're treated to the Aaron Ralston reality show, watching as he wastes time and energy filming himself as he delivers goofy monologues, achieving nothing other than to waste his own strength and decrease his odds of survival. I can understand leaving a message for your parents and loved ones. That takes 20 minutes though, and any time spent on videography after that point comes at enormous cost
Had Ralston chopped his arm off after, say, 15 hours (he became trapped at 3PM, and might not have been able to try a pulley till the next day)? He'd have been someone I'd be impressed by. He'd have been able to hike back on his own, saunter up to the hospital and tell them to "sew this up!". Instead he dooms himself through inaction, in the end surviving only because he happened to stumble across other humans out of sheer blind luck. There was no way to count on that, and had he not found that puddle water? Had those hikers not seen him? His 127 hour odyssey would have ended in tragedy. Sure, he chopped off the arm at the last second, but he'd already waited so long that he'd signed his own death sentence. He survived because of luck, not skill or courage (IMHO), and when I look into my heart and know that I'd be able to lop off my own limb in a heart beat if confronted with a similar choice? It's hard to root for Franco. It's like when a character decides to go outside at night to explore that spooky noise they heard in a slasher movie. When a character is that dumb, it's tough to respect them. Going by the title, it's as if Boyle expects us to be impressed Ralston survived as long as he did. Instead, I can only wonder what on earth took him so long
Aron should have told someone where he was going, or carried a cell.. but we all make mistakes. Accidents happen, and I don't blame him for being young and foolhardy and finding himself in a bind. What you do at that decision point is what counts, and that's where his most grievous mistakes were made. That's why I am unable to get fully on board with Boyle's hagiography
PS Oh, and since he ruined his knife, he should have cracked the camcorder open, taken the wiring and used it to slice through his arm by looping it and then drawing it back and forth. Surgical wire is used in hospital settings for amputations, and it seems like there would have been enough in his various gadgets to pull it off. This could have bee accomplished with one hand and his mouth, taken less time and left a smoother wound
Edited by Princess Kate - 9/26/11 at 9:47am
