Trainspotting [Blu-ray + Digital Copy]

Best movie ever. Choose life!

Danny Boyle’s 1996 film, “Trainspotting,” adapts Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel of the same name. It stars Ewan McGregor as Renton, Ewen Bremner as Spud, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, and Kelly Macdonald as Diane. The story focuses on the main characters amid Edinburgh, Scotland’s youth drug culture of the early 1990s as they party, abuse heroin, try to get clean, and seek some sort of meaning. Despite their attempts to kick the habit, Renton, Sick Boy, and Spud all relapse and just barely avoid serious consequences. Unfortunately, Tommy is not so lucky. Boyle’s style uses surrealism to enhance the black-comedy subject matter, with humor in the darkest moments. Frequent fourth-wall breaks include narration and humorous captions, further heightening Boyle’s style. A great, meditative, stylistic film with a phenomenal cast.

Wildly inventive, extremely funny (often sickly, disturbingly so), filmed with an insane sense of energy and pace, and an eye for truly inventive surreal images, and a soundtrack full of great songs that all fit perfectly. Not to mention a bevy of superb, brave performances. This study of 4 young mates in Scotland, 3 drug addicts, and one addicted to violence reminds me in some ways of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights". Both take us behind the scenes of dark, dysfunctional worlds (drugs, porn), but do so with a sense of humor and humanity that transcends clichés and makes us relate to these characters as human beings, not just porn stars or drug addicts. These are both films full of ideas about choices and morality, without ever feeling moralistic or judgmental, and both use their central world as metaphors for the bigger worlds around them. You might escape porn, or drugs, but you can't escape the forces that push people into them, (spoiler ahead!) Indeed I'm surprised to read so many reviews claiming Trainspotting's ending is optimistic. Yes Renton is walking away from drugs, but he's also stabbing his mates in the back, and joining a world that's just as obsessive about money, success, drink, sex, material things, as an addict is about drugs. To me, that's what the whole, chillingly `choose life' monologue that bookends the film is all about. Truly `choosing life' is about a lot more than just saying `no' to drugs. Not to mention the title `Trainspotting' which refers to the innocent, but still obsessive, humanity-disconnected hobby of noting down types and times of trains that go by. Perhaps a slower death than drugs, but a turning away from living life just the same.

There was so much more to this movie, this viewing, than the first time I saw it it 24 years ago. An excellent cautionary tale for our dystopian nightmare world of fentanyl and trank ! I wouldn't recommend it for youngsters, but young adults could possibly benefit from visuals learned. The dark humor tends to distract from possible lessons, but, all in all, worth re-watching.

This is the best movie with one of the worst messages and oddly enough it makes me feel good. If I EVER had the thought to do Heroin, I do not now! (I never did.....I'm too scared of needles). The only reason you're considering buying this is cuz you already like this movie and no one needs to sell you on it. However, the commentary is great! There are deleted scenes as well, but I just watched the whole thing with the commentary on and I love it even more. So with that, "YES THAT'S A "8#$@% DANCER!!" (right?? yeah??? did I do that right? come on you know.....when Ewan's character Renton gets his opium suppositories from the toilet!!) Whatever, just buy the stupid thing. Max OUT!!

To be blunt, this is not an easy film to watch. I took the chance because of the brilliance of the director, Danny Boyle, who has helmed such cinema classic as "Slumdog Millionaire", "Sunshine", "127 Hours" and "28 Days Later". Slumdog is the first Bollywood movie to be a hit in Hollywood. Sunshine is one of my favorite SciFi films on the 2000's, 28 Days Later is mentioned with the best Zombie movies on nearly every list of best Zombie movies and even 127 Hours manages to make that well known troll, James Franco, look decent and like an A-lister. Let's face it, Danny Boyle has the golden touch. Based on that AND the fact that Trainspotting is getting it's own sequel called "Porno", I decided to give Trainspotting a shot. I do not normally watch movies about drug addiction. It hits too close to home and I don't find it funny. Nobody comes into this world saying proudly "When I grow up, I want to be addicted to heroin." The thought of having to rob people just so you can buy drugs so that when you wake up in the morning, you have your morning fix. All that just so you don't start off the day sick. Or that you steal from family and friends until you have no family and no friends, to me, that is depressing and I tend to watch movies that lift my spirit, educate me or scare the hell out of me. I justified that this one met criteria #2 and #3. Like I said, this film is not easy to watch. You are bombarded with images that transcend visceral discomfort. You may well get sick just from watching. As he has shown again and again, Danny Boyle is brilliant, but I would prefer not to watch his vision of Ewan climbing into the grossest commode in the long history of cinema (well done, Scotland!). The thing is it does not condescend or patronize. It exists and I will never watch that scene again. I found this movie disgusting and brilliant. How you will take it, I suppose, depends on where you are in the world and what your experience has been personally or perhaps with a family member and their relationship to addiction, intervention, confrontation, tough love and no love. Addiction is a terrible thing. Trying to capture it on film is auspicious. I applaud and curse your efforts. Now go to A&E and watch the last season of "Intervention"

Finally bought the blue ray! looks and sounds great! The movie is great if you didn't already know. One of my favorites with tons of rewatch abilities so I just had to add it to my physical collection

Trainspotting is the kind of movie I can watch a hundred times and never get sick of. While the subject matter is gritty and occasionally dark, there is an overlying humor to the Renton character's narration that keeps it an enjoyable experience. Not for the squeemish, this film deals frankly with the effects of heroin addiction. The film stays mostly true to the incredible Irvine Welsh novel, with most of the dialogue and narration lifted right off the pages. However some characters are combined or deleted and of course not nearly all of the subject matter in the book is dealt with. An incredible soundtrack and a star-making performance from Ewan MacGregor and indeed the rest of the ensemble cast top off what in my book is a must-see film. I have not actually owned this film until now, and this DVD comes with a lot of deleted scenes and commentaries that made it worth the money.