The Walk (2015) * * *

Directed by:  Robert Zemeckis

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, Ben Schwartz, Steve Valentine

Robert Zemeckis' The Walk is based on a true story of a daredevil who actually walked a tightrope between the World Trade Center towers on August 6, 1974.    Yes.    He, with the help of his accomplices, stretched a tightrope from one tower to the other and walked over the gap in between them.    That's one quarter-mile up in the sky.     He wasn't paid for the stunt and received some fleeting publicity, but other than this film and the 2009 documentary Man on Wire, Philippe Petit did not receive much recognition for his accomplishment.

The movie overcomes early storytelling lapses to bring us to an awe-inspiring final thirty minutes which makes the endeavor worthwhile.   The visuals are extraordinary.   We know the height effect is CGI, yet I still found my knees weakening a few times.   Zemeckis' effects do nothing less than put us right there between the towers with Petit.    He succeeds in not just showing us the event, but allowing us to feel it and live it.    Oddly, this is a true story which actually underplays the stunt instead of exaggerating it.     In the film, Petit walks the length five times before he is arrested by New York City's finest.     In real life, it was eight times.     Zemeckis probably assumed we couldn't take anymore heart dropping scenes and took it easy on us.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Petit with a convincing enough French accent, which is to say he sounded better than Jacques Clouseau.    He tells his story from atop the Statue of Liberty, as if we needed more proof that he was not afraid of high places.      We see the World Trade Center Towers in the distance, knowing full well what they're eventual fate would become.     The Walk not only documents Petit's stunt, but also serves as a love letter to the now fallen Towers.     As Petit makes his walk, we can not help but realize that in a mere 27 years, the buildings would be reduced to rubble.    They were expected to stand for all time.   

Petit begins his story in Paris, where he acts as a street performer and while visiting a dentist, he sees a magazine photo of the Towers (still under construction) and believes he found his calling.     He enlists the help of circus tightrope expert Papa Rudy (Kingsley) to learn how to walk the tightrope and begins his journey by walking between the Notre Dame towers.     He succeeds and is now ready to take on the World Trade Center.      His research is extensive, visiting the Towers and using insiders and forged IDs to make his way to the roof.     His accomplices risked injury and being arrested to help Petit fulfill his "coup", as he called it.     They may have questioned his sanity while not questioning his passion.

The Paris stuff seemed mostly like marking time until we reach the main event.   It is the least interesting part of The Walk, but once the plan is set into motion and Petit and his crew work to avoid detection while planning the coup, The Walk is much more suspenseful.   Then, of course, we have the walk itself, which takes on a life of its own, but wasn't long enough to stretch the film to feature length.  

The visual effects are so real and stunning that they overshadow everything else.    It's good enough for us.    The event itself makes us forget the weaker scenes that went before.     Gordon-Levitt displays just the right, equal amounts of arrogance, vanity, and hubris for us to understand his vision.     He is not insufferable.     That is the last thing a story like this needs.     Zemeckis has spent a career specializing in visual effects extravaganzas with a heart and a central tug that keeps us engaged.    Even Flight (2012), which was mostly a human drama centering around an alcoholic pilot, contained a spectacular crash sequence.    Come to think of it, so did Cast Away.