“Slumdog Millionaire” was a “miracle movie” that most filmmakers only dream of. It was a work that marked the true and infiltrated vision of director Danny Boyle at his zenith. More so, it was a genuine underdog story that came out of nowhere to become a global sensation. It launched the careers of its cast, took in more than $350 million worldwide, and swept almost every major award on this side of the Atlantic, eventually taking in an incredible eight Academy Awards including Best Picture. Nothing short of extraordinary!

So how do you follow-up something like that? For Boyle, it was to go in a completely different direction and make “127 Hours,” an intimate and gut-wrenching true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), an energetic hiker who finds himself trapped and left to die in after a fallen boulder pins his arm within a desolate canyon in Utah.

Though there’s only so much you can do with a movie that takes place in one location, Boyle, film editor Jon Harris, and cinematographers Anthony Dod-Mantle and Enrique Chediak achieve the impossible by making the film a visually rich experience. They succeed by utilizing almost every flashy narrative technique in the book including split screens, zooms, point of view shots, flashbacks, flash-forwards, and A.R. Rahman’s eclectic score. Coupled with a towering performance from James Franco, “127 Hours” becomes an incredibly thrilling and dare I say it, even exciting, experience.

Unlike this year’s similarly themed "Buried" which takes place in a coffin for most of its running time, Boyle allows us to get into Ralston’s psyche long before he gets trapped. Boyle and co-screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (who also wrote “Slumdog Millionaire”) establish his character right off the bat in the film’s adrenaline-infused opening credits sequence as we see Aron prepare to depart for his weekend excursion in Utah. Every shot in this rapidly-cut sequence conveys a message about the man – from the way he fills his bottle of water to the food and the maps he carries with him to even the all-important cell phone and Swiss army knife that he neglects to carry.

When he ignores a phone call from his mother, we get a sense that this is a guy who may know everything there is to know about hiking but when it comes to human connection, he’s an empty vessel. It’s only when he stares death in the face and realizes that he’ll never be rescued that he begins to comprehend his misjudged priorities. It’s this approach to the story, coupled with Boyle’s frenetic style that elevates "127 Hours” from others of its kind.

And while it may sound depressing, this movie is anything but. I firmly believe that Danny Boyle is incapable of making a depressing or boring film. I mean, this is the guy who made watching heroin addicts going into relapse ("Trainspotting"), rotting zombies ("28 Days Later") and poverty-stricken Indian kids jumping into sewers ("Slumdog Millionaire") exciting experiences! As I stated earlier, Boyle infuses the movie with every cinematic technique you could think of from split screens to P.O.V shots to stylize the film.

In one standout sequence, Ralston reflects on his mistakes through the medium of an imagined day time talk show (complete with laugh track). Another sequence brilliantly juxtaposes Ralston’s daily routine to the Bill Withers classic “Lovely Day.” In yet another standout shot, he zooms out all the way from Aron to a cold Gatorade miles away in his deserted car. These scenes along with extreme close ups of Aron’s decreasing water supply, video camera battery and vivid flashbacks make the film almost feel like a video game at times; It’s things like this that all but guarantees Boyle a second consecutive directing Oscar nomination.

If Boyle is the painter of the piece, then James Franco is the one who sells it. Franco, who also gave a strong performance in “Howl” earlier this year, is revelatory as Ralston. For most of the picture, this is a one-man-show and thus every dazzling ounce of Boyle’s direction would have been moot if we couldn’t emphasize with the guy. I always knew that whoever got cast as Ralston would have had his hands full (no pun intended) preparing for what definitely is an incredibly demanding role; portraying a person who goes through virtually every major emotion is no joke and thus it’s a relief to see Franco succeed so admirably.

Finally, since virtually everyone familiar with Ralston’s story knows how it ends, I’ll address the infamous arm-cutting sequence. Yes, it’s graphic but no, not to the point where you’re going to throw up or faint. If you do, then you’re just a sissy. In all honesty, if you can stomach the opening twenty minutes of “Saving Private Ryan,” you can handle (see what I did there!) two minutes of arm cutting. It’s a disturbing sequence but at the end of it, you’re going to be standing up cheering for the guy! After all, this is the story of a guy who stared death in the face, stuck out his middle finger and literally walked away a changed man. Aron’s story is one that epitomizes the triumph of the human spirit and the will to live. I for one believe him to be the ultimate man’s man!

BOTTOM LINE: Buoyed by Danny Boyle’s energetic direction and a commanding performance from James Franco, “127 Hours” is one of the year’s most powerful movie-going experiences. While it may not be for the faint-hearted, it’s one of those movies you just HAVE to watch. At once, funny, sad, beautiful and just incredibly inspirational, this is one of my favorite movies of 2010. See it now!

GRADE: A

127 HOURS

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Written by: Simon Beaufoy and Danny Boyle

Starring: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara, Treat Williams

Rated: R (for language and some disturbing violent content/bloody images)