Man on Wire

If you ever saw “Spills and Chills” (1949) then you’ll get a sense of mankind’s obsession with doing daft things at great altitude. This takes that audacity just one step further as it introduces us to French acrobat Philippe Petit who has designs on the ultimate on American daftness. He is going to string some high wires between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and set off into the middle for some fun! Of course, aside from being dangerous and probably a bit foolhardy, it’s completely illegal. What follows for an overlong ninety minutes takes a pretty detailed look at the intricacies and logistics of the planning that went onto smuggling themselves and their kit into the fairly secure structure, then erect and align their taut cables from their roofs - and that’s before he sets even a toe on the lines. That’s really the bit I wanted to see, and that’s also the bit that we seem to have to listen to an inordinate amount of earnest chatter before we get to. The problem for me with him and his team is simply that they liked the sound of their own voices far too much rather than succinctly condense this into an half an hour documentary that builds up that sense of peril as they plan and execute their stunt and show us just how spine-tingling his efforts proved to be. Lots of animated maps of planes going from Paris to New York, lots of talking heads and a few aerials of 1974 New York lose their lustre after ten minutes and though there is a sense of mischief from some of the contributors, it’s largely drowned out by the plotting that has all the complexities of an heist movie but none of the excitement. It was dare-devildom at it’s most exciting, but this doesn’t really convey that very well and frankly it borders a little on the self-indulgent.