The 'Two Line Review' lives on!

But gets seriously carried away...

127 Hours (the Danny Boyle film)
(~100 minutes. Confusing isn't it?)

Go see this film, it's about as good a mainstream film about the outdoors as I've seen - involving on every level.

It's especially good cinematographically, with some trademark Danny Boyle split-screen storytelling put to very good use, and the Utah Canyonlands scenery - for my money, the most breathtakingly rugged and impressive wilderness on the planet - is stunningly shot.

Some familiar stylistic devices have been appropriated from obvious and not-so-obvious film sources (I won't go into details - they are pretty obvious and fun to spot) but, being used quite appropriately here, they smack of a well-researched project rather than of plagiarism, and generally add to the film's authenticity.
 
Importantly to 'us lot' it is true to the spirit of the outdoors and is technically accurate. It's also very absorbing - given what you happened to have in your rucksack, you ask yourself what you would do if you found yourself in that situation. Seemed to me like he made the right choices. 

To the 'he should have known better' tribe, I'd say this. In the film (I haven't read the book) the guy was competent, doing what he loved, and got himself into a tricky situation then got himself out of it again. He doesn't blame anyone but himself. This is OK by me. Lord knows I've been down many a canyon and soloed many a mountain V Diff without telling anyone where I was going. It's not that I prefer it that way, it just that 'being sensible' doesn't always happen - especially if you're remotely adventurous, and this is an adventure story. If you want to be judgmentalist about that kind of approach then you're going to have to switch off your 'inner adult' to get the most out of this excellent film.

I'm not sure if it will do much for the sales of canyoning guidebooks, but they say any publicity is good publicity...