Trainspotting: Ultimate Collector's Edition [Blu-ray] [1996]

McGregor, Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner play a slouching trio of Scottish junkies; Carlyle their narcotic-eschewing but hard-drinking and generally psychotic mate Begbie. In Boyle's hands, their lives unfold in a rush of euphoric highs, blow-out overdoses and agonising withdrawals (all cued to a vogueish pop soundtrack). Throughout it all, John Hodge's screenplay strikes a delicate balance between acknowledging the inherent pleasures of drug use and spotlighting its eventual consequences. In Trainspotting's world view, it all comes down to a question of choices--between the dangerous Day-Glo highs of the addict and the grey, grinding consumerism of the everyday Joe. "Choose life", quips the film's narrator (McGregor) in a monologue that was to become a mantra. "Choose a job, choose a starter home... But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?" Ultimately, Trainspotting's wised-up, dead-beat inhabitants reject mainstream society in favour of a headlong rush to destruction. It makes for an exhilarating, energised and frequently terrifying trip that blazes with more energy and passion than a thousand more ostensibly life-embracing movies. --Xan Brooks

To recap, Trainspotting follows the lives of three junkies (Renton, Sick Boy and Spud) and a psychopath (Begbie) in Edinburgh (although quite a lot of the film is actually shot in my home town of Glasgow). Having recieved a mixture of acclaim and controversy when it was released, those who make the effort to watch it will realise it is not about glamorising drugs. It is essentially about the break up of friendships between men who have been pals since school and whose lives decay in a furore of drink, violence, sex, and drugs. It also makes an important statement of how mundane junkies' lives are.

The most disturbing aspect of this film is actually the amount of humour: from the bookmaker's toilet to the psychopath Begbie, quite simply a nutter, to use a nice vernacular phrase. Also look out for Sick Boy's great impressions of Sean Connery.

The extras on the DVD are great and a perfect length. Various missing scenes are included on the first disc. On the second disc, there is a mixture of interviews (including one with the author of the book, Irvine Welsh), and good behind-the-scenes material, including some nice multi-angle material.

Admirers of Trainspotting will have already appreciated its pulsating and eclectic soundtrack: from Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' to Sleeper's cover of 'Atomic'; from Iggy Pop's 'Lust For Life' to 'Habanera' from Carmen. This DVD explains the choice of sound, as well as other aspects such as visuals and colour, and was interested to find out the music is designed to move the audience from the 1980s where the story begins to the 1990s. Indeed, Renton, the hero (?) of the film begins as a person with his mind stuck in the era of Iggy Pop, before eventually waking up to the 1990s with Pulp and Damon Albarn. Incidentally, also look out for the vox-pops of Albarn at the Cannes film festival on the second disc, as well as the likes of Oasis and Ewan McGregor himself.

This a film which deals with a controversial subject in a perfect manner with an excellent cast, great visuals, and a racing sountrack. ***** Five Stars! *****


Choose a job, choose a family.....choose life.   September 11, 2006
Billy Ray Cyrus (Bali)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

How can you not like a movie that features a shot of a dead baby crawling along a ceiling and rotating its head 180 degrees? If that doesn't scream 'fun' for the entire family, I don't know what does. Ha.
Anyhoo, the movies setting and subject matter were somewhat grim to put it mildly, but that didn't stop Trainspotting from becoming one of the top movies of the nineties, and having just watched it this morning I can safely state that it holds up well to this day. While I haven't read the Irvine Welsh novel on which this movie is based, I have read some of his other work (Porno, Filth), and the movie is a perfect distillation of his storytelling style-rapid-fire, filled with bawdy set pieces, characters living on the edge of acceptable society, and lots and lots of swear words.
It's also the kind of violent, genre-defying, and pop culture reference-laden movie, complete with way-cool soundtrack, that emerged with such force in the nineties and spawned so many imitations in this decade. For my money at least, this movie is a much more entertaining and convincing look at the world of heroin users than the interesting, but annoyingly depressing and pedantic, Requiem for a Dream, which came out a few years later to almost hyperbolic praise.
Trainspotting is a blunt, unapologetic look a life most of us can scarcely imagine, delivered with a combination of hilarity and horror that effortlessly intertwines these two extremes. It doesn't shrink from depicting the damage caused by heroin addiction, but it doesn't downplay all the fun of it either, which is what lends it so much of its gritty believability.

Trainspotting also marked the arrival on the international scene of director Danny Boyle, whose manic visual style would later serve him well on the slightly-less-brilliant 28 Days Later. Perhaps most impressively, it manages to contain one of my all-time top ten movie lines ("Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"), my favorite nickname ever, fictional or otherwise ("We called him Mother Superior on account of the length of his habit"-brilliant), and more "Oh my God, did I just see that?" images than you'll find in fifty Hollywood blockbusters. In Boyle's hands the crazy imagery practically flies off the screen, be it human waste flying from a sheet across a room, the movie's protagonist climbing into Scotland's filthiest toilet to retrieve something he lost, or the hallucinatory, nightmarish haze of a cold-turkey withdrawal. The unrestrained depictions of sex, nudity, violence, drug use, and bodily functions make this a movie not to be viewed by the squeamish, but they perfectly suit its unflinching examination of the sordid goings-on in one country's drug-laden urban culture.

Outstanding. 8/10.


Funny, disturbing and highly entertaining....!   January 17, 2006
Shkandrij
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

Making a good film based around hardcore drug abuse is a tough thing to pull off, however somehow this tale of gritt, violence, sex, betrayal and drugs found its way to international stardom. The acting is A*, you really don't get much better then this, and the script is slick and snappy, along with the plot which is funny and disturbing at the same time, showing us life as a 'druggi' in an almost documentary style way, making it highly realistic.


Choose the best British film of 1996   October 16, 2007
R. J. Harvey (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge's 1996 adaptation of Irvine Welsh's 1993 debut novel was so central to young British culture at that time that it was always in danger of being forgotten as a mere curio of a bygone Britpop era. Thankfully, good comedy leads a long life, especially the black stuff. In the meanest, wittiest way, Trainspotting said "bollocks" to Britpop - in fact, it said "bollocks" to every fad and fashion going - and so it became immortal.

Welsh's novel is, like many of his works, essentially a series of short stories bound together by a group of amiable, self-centred protagonists who share a common interest in the procurement of a life-affirming experience - in this case heroin. Unfilmable as such, Boyle and Hodge do an astonishing job of wrapping up a majority of the best Edinburgh tales in a tight 90-minute narrative. The misadventures of Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremner) et al is alluring because their lust for life eclipses their need for skag - the physical enjoyment is never denied, and yet neither is our heroes' desire to see above and beyond the depravity and the mundanity. The film-makers are not simply allowing us to relate to these emaciated thieves - they are necessarily ensuring it.

The casting is spot-on. McGregor puts in a signature performance as the amiable Mark Renton; Bremner brings the sensitive Spud hilariously to life; Robert Carlyle is unforgettable as the monstrous Francis Begbie - a man I fear we have all met and to whose jokes we have all felt obliged to laugh. Johnny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, and feature debutant Kelly Macdonald support superbly.

What's the point of it all? you might ask. To say its simply about capturing a moment in British pop culture would be to deny the quality of its storytelling. Trainspotting is more than a zeitgeist because, for all its swagger and the brilliance of its soundtrack, it possesses an intricate, multi-taloned narrative navigated by 3D characters, more than one of whom finds his way to an uplifting and hopeful conclusion. Trainspotting is vital.


Stunning   July 10, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

This film is a dark portrayal of the horror of heroin addiction.
Revolving around one guy who is addicted to heroin and his attempts to clean up, with some hope emerging at the end.

The film is excellently acted showing a gritty and shocking life of drugs and violence and shows the life of an addict in all its aspects.

Excellent camerawork is also evident, especially when he goes on a trip and his experience is shown as a wierd fantasy.

Overall this film is masterful and I thoroughly recommend it. This is similiar in filming and style to other films such as L4yer Cake but the plot is very original and will have you fascinated whilst at the same time depressed at times and disgusted at others. It has recieved high praise in reviews from the ctritics and it definately deserves it. Buy it!