Walk, The (2015)
 |
Review #1,224 |
THE SCOOP
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon
Plot: In 1974, high-wire artist Philippe Petit recruits a team of people to help him realize his dream: to walk the immense void between the World Trade Center towers.
Genre: Adventure / Biography / Drama
Awards: -
Runtime: 123min
Rating: PG for thematic elements involving perilous situations, and for some nudity, language, brief drug references and smoking.
Distributor: Sony Pictures
IN RETROSPECT (Spoilers: NO)
“People ask me: Why do you risk death? For me, this is life.”
My
testicles shrunk multiple times during the course of the film, so I would like
to extend a heartfelt thanks to director Robert Zemeckis for manipulating my
nether region.
His
latest movie The Walk proves that
there is still value to be found in films that market their latest attractions
through high-concepts, or in this case, a high wire act, and visual effects, or
in this case, a recreation of what had been dubbed the greatest artistic crime
of the century – the 1974 tightrope wire walk between the Twin Towers in New
York City by performance artist Philippe Petit.
Petit
is played here by the goofy Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who forces out a
French-accented English that you might find endearing (or distracting). His performance is adequate but never showy;
in fact the star of the show belongs to the environment surrounding him,
created via visual effects of the highest order. I think, quite seriously, The Walk might win the Oscar for Best
Visual Effects, provided it gets nominated and if the Academy decides to shun
the bigger blockbusters.
Like
his compatriot Steven Spielberg, Zemeckis doesn’t seem to have lost his touch
for the spectacular over the decades.
Most well-known for the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy and for such films
as Forrest Gump (1994) and Cast Away (2000), the director employs
the use of 3D in The Walk to great
(vertigo) effect.
The
final thirty minutes of the film, which lets us experience Petit’s death-defying
and incredibly tense tightrope walk on the wire 110 storeys high (without any
safety belt, mind you), is worth the price of the admission ticket alone, yes
even for the IMAX 3D ticket. It goes to
prove that the value of such forms of green-screen CG-driven entertainment can
be validated when done right and with care for the viewer’s experience.
For
most parts of the film, Petit’s story is told straightforwardly, perhaps to a
fault. Not to mention the entire film
rests on the intra-diegetic, breaking-of-the-fourth-wall narration of
Gordon-Levitt, as if unabashedly beckoning us to hear his extraordinary tale of
wonder and disbelief. I don’t think it
is the most effective storytelling technique, but at the very least, the film
wants to feel like it is entertaining you.
So
let’s indulge – watch it, and then watch the documentary Man on Wire (2008), which is even better.
GRADE: B+
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