Up in the air

The Walk tells the story of Philippe Petit’s astounding 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and treats it as as a high-energy combination of caper film, performance art and inspired daring-do.

With Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) directing and the preternaturally pixilated Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing Petit, the result is a very engaging action-movie/biopic entertainment, with vivid layers of cliffhanger suspense (both physical and spiritual) that captivate even though the full story is already well-known. That story has already been told on film in James Marsh’s superb 2008 documentary, Man on Wire. Marsh’s film, like The Walk, is based on Petit’s memoir, To Reach the Clouds, and it remains the more essential of the two.

But Zemeckis’ film does surpass Marsh’s in one crucial respect—the richly detailed attention it devotes to “the walk” itself. Some first-rate CGI is of course a big part of that, but Zemeckis and company present Petit’s great wire-walk in terms that are both spectacular and intimate, both credible and wonderful. Gordon-Levitt’s profoundly nimble performance is a key ingredient in all that.

Ben Kingsley does some nice supporting work as “Papa Rudy,” Petit’s mentor in wire-walking and public performance. Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Clément Sibony, César Domboy and Steve Valentine all serve well as Petit’s motley crew of volunteer aides and “co-conspirators.”