Why? That’s likely to be the question on many people’s minds when this documentary concludes. Why did effete Frenchman Philippe Petit decide to walk on a tight rope between the World Trade Center towers in 1974? Why devote an entire feature-length documentary to a subject that seems pretty limited? Well, Man on Wire is certainly an engaging film; amusingly, director James Marsh structures the flick like a heist movie, where we watch Petit assemble his team and practice his stunt. There is a sense of beauty watching a man balance on a wire hundreds of feet above the ground. The film also has colorfully French characters to fill in the details on how they pulled off the “artistic crime of the century.” Of course any modern art dealing with the World Trade Center is given new meaning, and Man on Wire is aided by added poignancy of watching the building construction and then the daring feats of Petit. I confess, though, that I’m dumbstruck at this movie being declared the finest documentary of 2008. It’s a good movie, sure, but not even the fourth best documentary I’ve seen in a doc-heavy year. The footage of Man on Wire is more amazing than the story behind how it happened.

Nate’s Grade: B