Friday, October 16, 2015

Film Review - The Walk (2015)

The Walk is directed by Robert Zemeckis (Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump among others) and is based off of the true story of French High Wire Walker Philippe Petit and his daring wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Centre in August 1974 (ironically the same time that Richard Nixon resigned as US President.)

Its sad that a film about a remarkable story by a remarkable man as well as being in the world he was living in and dreamt up a dream from an ordinary man this is a very disappointing movie to sit through.

And the big reason for this is due to the script which undercuts a lot of its tension with a near pointless narration by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays Philippe in the film and he does it so much that part of you starts to get bored with the film the more it rolls on towards its inevitable climax.

Speaking of that climax, the Walk itself between the Twin Towers is very well done but when it was over I have to say that it didn't stick in my mind it was just like "Well that was that, what's next" and given the importance of this to the film I left the cinema feeling very disappointed overall.

And finally as for the performances well the moment I heard JGL's French accent I just started laughing because it was every inch as cringe inducing as it was in the previews for the film, Charlotte Le Bon is fine here is the typical pixie mannered partner while Ben Kingsley is thankfully not as laughably bad as he was in Exodus Gods and Kings and is only in the film for a short time but he does okay with what he has here.

And so that was the Walk, a disappointing film about a remarkable event, best to rent the 2008 Oscar Winning doco Man on Wire instead and listen to the Dragon song Dreams of Ordinary Men which I did think of when I left the cinema along with my disappointment overall, 2 out of 5.

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