127 Hours is the latest offering from Britain's own Danny Boyle, and tells the story of a man stuck down a hole for a few days. It's based on the autobiographical book "Between a Rock and a Hard Place", and offers a solution to anyone finding their self in such a situation. Cut your arm off.

The film looks really nice, and comes flying out of the gates with a nice fast pace, up-beat music, and some stylish split-screens. The film has a very British feel to it, and it's quite refreshing to see this style in this type of film. There are lots of wide shots of the desert which are slightly over saturated and have a lovely juicy look to them.

When Franco's character meets two lost young ladies, the dialogue becomes a bit cheesy. I know he's trying to chat them up, but still. Luckily this is still in the up-beat part of the film so it isn't too jarring. The two girls seem very comfortable with him considering they just met. There is no way I would just jump down a hole with a stranger. Even if he went first. Jim Jones much?

The actual moment where the rock traps Franco's arm was done very well, though his reaction is extremely underwhelming. You'd think he's just snagged his sleeve. Considering most people would tell you getting your finger caught in a door is one of the most painful experiences you can have, you'd think getting your arm caught in a canyon would merit more than a yelp. I'm also baffled about why he's bothered when his hand starts aching from chiselling. Better prioritising of outward expressions of pain is needed.

A large chunk of the film is dedicated to either flash-backs (life flashing before eyes?) or hallucinations due to dehydration. I'm confused about why most of these are taken up with the two girls he met that day. He didn't seem that bothered about them at the time, and now it seems they're all he can think about. On the subject of dehydration, I did enjoy his breakfast show bit into his camera (which magically moves to keep him in frame. Is he paying the ants or something?) He does a spot on Johnny Depp impression, which leads me to think that Mr Depp might start being a good actor again if we gave him a glass of water. Or cut his arm off. He needs to learn.

There's a part where he finds footage of one of the girl's boobs when they were swimming, and decides to crank one out, though this plan is quickly aborted. I can't tell if this was because his good hand is trapped, or he's really stuck between a rock and a flaccid place.

The arm cutting scene is extremely well done. It's very hard to watch and the sound design and camera work make it feel panicked and painful. Once the arm is removed, he goes back to take a photo of it, because he's clearly going to need some sort of reminder. He also seems to function relatively well on his escape considering he's just been tripping balls from dehydration. Unless all that was from something in his piss?

The end of the film shows the actual guy the film is about, and talks about his real life after the events of the film. It even has a little joke, saying "He always leaves his wife a note when he goes out now.". It's a shame she can't read them because he was right handed.

The film tends to focus on all the little details, like ants walking around or the sun coming up, or water moving up a straw, and this is because peoples' suspicions about the film are well founded. It is really hard to make a feature length film about a man stuck down a hole on his own. All of those little bits and bobs are needed, not only to pad out the film, but also to break up what would otherwise be an hour and a half of James Franco not moving much. This works at first, but the film felt like it started to drag around the halfway point for me

The big moments of the film are brilliantly done, but unfortunately it's a great story that's been spread too thin.