Trainspotting Special Edition
Filed Under: Film, Reviews | Article Tags : DVD review
By: Erik Swift
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With the sole exception of documentaries, every movie is bogus. Motion pictures are staged reenactments of a script spawned by a writer’s take on historical events, previously published documents or their own imagination. Gushing blood is usually chocolate syrup in black and white films, and box office receipts often cause more fatalities than fake bullets (with apologies to Brandon Lee). Knowing this makes Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” that much more powerful a film. Its characters are so real and their relationships so vivid, they leap off the screen in every frame with glowing life. It’s a startling piece of work.
The film had conjured an unprecedented level of buzz prior to its American opening night on a Friday evening in mid-August 1996. The most visceral experience I ever had in a movie theater, no one in the audience at Red Bank, N.J.’s White Street Theater was more than thirty years of age. Anyone older would have been sweating after five minutes of this colorfully hypnotic parable about Scottish heroin addicts. The title refers to a breed of enthusiasts that jot down train arrival times compared to the schedule. Trainspotters, as they are known, have a hobby considered a complete waste of time by many, easily drawing comparisons to any pastime including using drugs. Dissimilar to any other production before or since, viewing this for the first time was a unique happening that will never be duplicated. Celebrating its double-DVD release is expected – Buena Vista Home Video hasn’t turned the film to shite. Bulging with outtakes, commentaries and behind-the-scenes nuggets, it’s a must-get.
During an interview on the second disc, producer Andrew Macdonald calls “Trainspotting” a UK version of a US teen film. If so, it conceivably could have turned into “Ferris Bueller’s Year Off.” Spearheading a superior cast, Ewan McGregor hurled himself into the public eye in the role of Mark Renton. The central character, Renton hangs out with taunted Daniel “Spud” Murphy (Ewan Bremmer, who played Renton in stage version), crafty Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), the troubled Thomas “Tommy” McKenzie (Kevin McKidd in his film debut) and loose cannon Francis Begbie (a never-better Robert Carlyle) in Edinburgh. All play soccer together, but Spud, Sick Boy and Renton have a deeper, darker bond through the city’s heroin scene. Renton intermittently attempts to kick his habit, but is only motivated to enter a rehabilitation program to avoid jail. After going cold turkey following a horrendous withdrawal, he finds himself straying from the straitlaced path when his friends re-invade his life…along with a moneymaking plan and a batch of h.
The five guys are an engaging team – their interplay is equally boisterous and rowdy, while frequently dipping into the utmost of depravity and despair. Quite a polar opposite expose of Scot culture and healthy camaraderie displayed during the previous year’s Oscar-winning “Braveheart.” Knowing that makes watching Bernard Lee a.k.a. M’s grandson (Miller) discuss the finer points of the early 007 films featuring Lee and Edinburgh native Sean Connery quite humorous…despite barely being able to make out their words through the brogue, which clears with multiple viewings. Glasgow’s Kelly Macdonald (“Gosford Park”) makes a radiant debut as Diane, a girl that should enter everyone’s life the way she enters Renton’s. It’s the fiery Carlyle that manages to push “Trainspotting” off the edge of the planet. A supernova performance, the actor infects Begbie with a constant overwhelming wrath that is astonishing in its intensity. It’s a bravura performance that never snared him an Oscar nomination.
In fact, the film just picked up a single nomination for its screenplay adaptation – a clear indication that the academy just had no idea what to make of it. It’s doubtful that enough words exist to describe “Trainspotting.” Its eclectic soundtrack uses a weave of glam (Lou Reed, Iggy Pop), Britpop (Blur, Pulp) and ambient cuts (Leftfield, Primal Scream) to memorably shape its 94 minutes. The in-your-face editing adds muscle to a work that never needs it. Two of the most vomit-inducing scenes ever filmed are here (one inspired by the original “Nightmare On Elm Street”!), and the DVD extras shed light on that and a whole lot more. A prosthetic arm – used for an extreme close up of an injection – looks so lifelike, you’ll feel the prick of the needle. Some of the interviews are unnecessary (does anyone from Oasis really need to be asked about a movie they have no connection with?) or sub par (a chat with the book’s author Irvine Welsh in Hi-8), but their inclusion shows how many were touched by the far-reaching impact “Trainspotting” made on mid-nineties pop culture. Contrary to McGregor’s diatribe of how Scots are the lowest of the low, this film is everything but. “Trainspotting” embraces decadence, life, joy, horror and retribution. En route to rattling your soul, it will touch your spirit.
Reviewer’s Opinion: BUY IT!!
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