TRAINSPOTTING
A film review by the Gabby J-Man
Copyright 1996 USPAN
The URL of this review is http://moviereviews.com/jman/trainspotting.html
Rating: (7 out of 10)
Channel Four Films (1996) Starring Ewan Mcgregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan Bremner, Robert Carlyle. Directed by Danny Boyle. 93 minutes.
PROS:
***massively raw, hardcore direction and dialogue. Ewan Mcgregor is plain awesome as Renton, and the supporting play is very solid indeed - sick boy is amazing.
***very funny in places, and rather sad at others times - it takes an unusual film to achieve both in such frequent and convincing succession.
***a real filmlover's movie - the action is uniquely cinematic and couldn't be done with similar effect in any other medium. You'll know what I mean when you see the film.
***Extremely inventive - although the film was totally storyboarded one gets the feeling many of the creative touches were thought up on set. Characters jumping from out of one scene and into the next, subtitles to make dialogue understood in a noisy nightclub, photo sequences in the place of 24-frame film, dead babies crawling along the ceiling...interesting!
***Simply manages to be unusual, astonishing, hilarious, shocking, and even fairly enjoyable - all on a $2 million budget, and shot in six weeks. A considerable achievement, considering some films a hundred times the budget can't even hold water.
CONS:
***Too many Tarantino-isms, though I'm sure Danny Boyle didn't plan on this - it just comes across in that way. The sudden, shockingly violent outbursts with blood everywhere. We are meant to think a glass tankard shattering bloodily on a innocent bystander woman is funny. If you think this kind of thing is funny, file this under "pros".
***Considering the massive hype (in the UK), the film is basically disappointing as a whole. It's just not entertaining enough - though some sequences are wonderful (the scene where Renton climbs into the toilet and finds himself swimming in a Blue Lagoon type paradise). It alternates uncomfortably between a very stark reality and total "movie magic" (see toilet bit) - rather strange and it didn't work quite right for me.
***I didn't feel any real depth to this, which would have been fine if the basic film was entertaining enough - but it wasn't. Renton's withdrawal bit in his bedroom at home is a nightmare to watch - again, for those who like their movies grim and cringemaking, file this under "pros".
OVERALL:
Another film I had really high expectations for, with those high hopes ultimately getting a little floored. I'm not normally into outlining the story in my reviews, but as most of the US audience won't have heard of Trainspotting I'll make a brief exception here. This film is mainly concerned with detailing the exploits of a group of heroin druggies, how they steal together, get wired together, and ultimately try to clean up - the main focus is on a character called Renton, and how he lives his sordid life. If that sounds depressing then I've only slightly misled you - the film does do its best to disgust and shock, but has (perhaps) a slightly optimistic ending. There's such a total lack of sentimentality or cliche here, you actually may find yourself secretly looking foward to the comfort of the next la-la John Hughes production, certainly one of the guys I saw it with said he "didn't go the movies to see this kind of trauma". Still, considering the tiny bugdet, considering the limited and home-grown production team, the props hand picked from charity shops and jumble sales, and the relative lack of experience of the writer/director/producer team - Trainspotting is a wondeful achievement. The film's been praised for just about everything over here, and that's natural because British people become very excited after they make a good film, but in truth Trainspotting's greatest asset is probably it's sheer range of shinning visual creativity, a true testament to the special art of the low-budget film if ever there was one.
RATING: 7/10. Pumping.
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