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100Man on Wire is about the vanquishing of the towers by bravery and joy, not by terrorism.
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100The film itself is perfectly poised between artistry and audacity. It's beautiful.
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Delightful.
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100The sight is magical and heartbreaking in equal measure. Look, the movie says: Where so many would fall, a man walks on air.
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100The gorgeous music includes Ralph Vaughan Williams' wafting tone poem ''The Lark Ascending'' -- apt in describing an artist who might well be part bird.
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100One of the favorite sayings of journalists and politicians is "You don't want to see how the sausage is made." Marsh's movie says you do want to see how a miracle is made, even if the details can be just as unsavory.
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100This is a police procedural, if you will, about what's been called the artistic crime of the century.
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100One of the most wildly entertaining docs of recent years.
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100James Marsh's documentary raises the bar for the genre to skyscraper height.
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100Thanks to Marsh's sensitive storytelling, Man on Wire manages to put Petit's performance into another, more ineffable realm: What began as a caper turned into poetry, and poetry became a prayer.
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91Takes on the air of a heist film as the preparations proceed, and even knowing the outcome, tension still remains.
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91An engrossing study in abnormal psychology, an inspirational drama that tells us a determined man really can do anything his mind can envision and is the first film that plays on what could become a phenomenon of the new millennium: World Trade Center nostalgia.
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91Petit, by the way, is still very much alive and spry. I saw him at a screening of the film at the Sundance Film Festival where he spoke to the audience afterwards. On his way up to the podium, he tripped.
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90Thorough, understated and altogether enthralling documentary.
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89Hauntingly beautiful film.
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88As suspenseful as a full-blown thriller.
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88Engrossing and exhilarating documentary.
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88He had the fearlessness of a 104-story man and something more than a daredevil's brass.
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88The film runs 95 minutes, and you'll be holding your breath for most of them.
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Marsh's most remarkable directorial achievement, however, is preserving the original sense of amazement and awe when watching historical footage and still photographs of Petit walking that tightrope up in the sky.
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88Wallenda once said, "Life is being on the wire; everything else is just waiting." This film makes that motto ring true.
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80History has made his midair stroll meaningful, but the film shows how even then, everyone - from Petit to his accomplices to the cops who were waiting for him atop the North Tower - recognized the stunt's crazy poetry.
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80Pre the events of 9/11, the film might have simply been an entertaining, high risk tale of a death-defying feat related in both interviews, archival footage and photos and Marsh's usual meticulous and creative re-enactment vignettes. Post 9/11 you find yourself marveling that a man in far away France became smitten with the twin towers long before they became the target of terrorist attacks.
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80Speaking as one New Yorker who lived through 9/11 and saw this film with a packed house of natives at its Tribeca Film Festival premiere, I experienced Man on Wire as an almost mystical incantation.
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80The most miraculous thing about Man on Wire is not the physical feat itself, 1,350 feet above the ground, but that as you watch it, the era gone, the World Trade Center gone, the movie feels as if it's in the present tense. That nutty existentialist acrobat pulled it off. For an instant, he froze time.
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While largely lighthearted, Petit's walk and Marsh's film take on new meaning post-9/11. Man on Wire never mentions the events of that day, but the Trade Center's collapse continues to weigh on Petit, as if its destruction was every bit as tragic as the human lives lost that day.
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80Man on Wire brings back a time when the towers were still symbols of aspiration and possibility.
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75A fascinating time capsule: a combination of talking-head interviews, actual footage, and re-creations that evokes a kinder, gentler world and provides insight into one of the most audacious stunts of the 20th century.
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75Much of this story is indeed entertaining: there's a tone of lighthearted mischievousness to the plotting and scheming of an illegal act that is essentially harmless.
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70In archival photos Petit seems to float between the towers, a tiny black figure against a vivid blue sky; the images are all the more poignant for the unstated fact that Petit is still around when the buildings aren't.
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67It's a story worth telling, yes--but after 90 minutes, it's hard not to wonder if the storyteller can talk about anything else.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 24 out of 29
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Mixed: 1 out of 29
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Negative: 4 out of 29
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RichardS2
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CecilT.5Geezers reminiscing about their glory day -- overlooked in the drama of Watergate -- isn't enough to fill 90 minutes.