Watch The Walk
- PG
- 2015
- 2 hr 3 min
-
7.3 (136,821)
In 1974, a French high-wire artist named Philippe Petit achieved what many considered impossible- he walked a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, suspended over 1,300 feet above the ground. The Walk tells the story of Petit's incredible feat, from his early days as a street performer in Paris to his larger-than-life dream of conquering the Big Apple.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Philippe Petit, a charismatic and daring performer who is obsessed with tightrope walking. He finds his calling as a street performer, drawing crowds with his daring stunts and acrobatics. After seeing a newspaper article about the construction of the World Trade Center, Petit becomes fixated on the idea of walking between the towers, which are still under construction at the time.
Petit travels to New York with his girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) and his accomplice Jean-Louis (Guillaume Baillargeon), who helps him plan and prepare for the walk. They fly under the radar, disguising themselves as construction workers and sneaking into the towers at night to study the layout and plan their route. Along the way, they encounter various setbacks and obstacles, including run-ins with security guards and the fear that they will be caught before they can execute their plan.
As Petit trains for the walk, he encounters many skeptics and naysayers, including a fellow performer named Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), who tries to convince him that the stunt is impossible. But Petit is undeterred, and with the help of his team, he hatches a plan to string a high-wire between the towers and perform his death-defying walk.
The climax of the movie follows Petit's breathtaking walk, as he takes his first steps onto the wire and begins his journey across the void. The scene is shot in stunning detail, with the camera following Petit's every move as he navigates the hazards of the high-wire and battles the wind and the vertigo-inducing height.
Throughout the movie, director Robert Zemeckis uses a mix of tight close-ups, sweeping panoramas, and dizzying point-of-view shots to convey the physical and emotional challenges of tightrope walking. The score is similarly evocative, with composer Alan Silvestri weaving together a tapestry of orchestral and electronic sounds to heighten the tension and excitement of the film.
The Walk is an inspiring tribute to one of the most daring feats in human history, a reminder of the incredible things that can be accomplished when we set our minds to a goal and refuse to give up. It's a movie that will have audiences on the edge of their seats, holding their breath and cheering on Philippe Petit as he takes his historic walk between the towers.
The Walk is a 2015 history movie with a runtime of 2 hours and 3 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.3 and a MetaScore of 70.