Checked out The Walk, the true story about a crazy French high-wire walker (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) who, in 1974, strings a wire between the towers of the World Trade Center and walks it. Illegally.

This is a good movie but it’s a little long, the humor often falls flat, and it spends a lot of time on not-very-exciting things like running wires between buildings. Basically just a little too much planning, narration, and build-up for the Walk itself… which is a bit of a problem since the movie is basically setup as a heist film. Can these crazy French people scout the building, get an inside man, get their equipment in place, etc. It’s a kind of stylish 60s or 70s style caper with cool music and a crisp pace even though it sometimes feels like it’s dragging out the running time.

But how about that walk? Well, the movie looks amazing – it rebuilds the World Trade Center and its very convincing. The film could get people afraid of heights a lot of vertigo. The walk starts a little mechanical (this is what its like to walk the wire) and if that’s all it was, the movie would be lame. But then it finds the beauty in the walk and then the humor… and then a little extra danger (you know, on top of being on a thin wire 110 stories high).

The movie is a love letter to both following your dream and to the Towers… and possibly (without saying it) following your dreams before its too late. To the movie’s credits, only in the last few minutes does it really make you feel sad about the towers… but it does it without being maudlin and without driving the point home (I was crossing my fingers it wouldn’t have a fade out on the towers and a fade in to the new building or something similar).

I just wish the movie had been shorter and didn’t have to spoon feed us its story… every bit of it, including some dull stuff. I will say that Joseph Gordon Levitt does a french accent that isn’t as bad as it is in the trailers (where I was wondering where Peter Sellers was hiding).

Another aside – there’s a documentary about this story from a few years ago that won an academy award. Called Man on Wire. I haven’t seen it… but now I want to. Score 1 for The Walk.

Score: 76