Trainspotting

 

          

         

          I used to believe, The Lost Weekend was the most disturbing movie about addiction. Clearly, I was wrong, because after watching Danny Boyle’s classic Trainspotting I now feel so sick and disturbed that I truly need to take a long shower as well as cleaning myself about six times. And I'm not lying when I say that this movie is disturbing look on heroin addiction and why I will never in a million years, want to even touch that stuff.  

          Heroin addict Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) stumbles through bad ideas and sobriety attempts with his unreliable friends -- Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle), Spud (Ewen Bremmer) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd). He also has an underage girlfriend, Diane (Kelly Macdonald), along for the ride. After cleaning up and moving from Edinburgh to London, Mark finds he can't escape the life he left behind when Begbie shows up at his front door on the lamp, and a scheming Sick Boy follows.

          The film honestly starts off with a bang by having the characters run for their lives over lord knows what and I thought to myself okay at least this film is going on a fast-paced thrill ride. Then we get to scenes where it gets absolutely disgusting like Ewan McGregor having a bad case of the runs and going into the worst toilets ever upon which everywhere in this bathroom is LITERALLY filled with s**t and McGregor is pulling out pills he dropped from the SAME TOLIET. Which I was taken an aback on how gross this looked and new from that point on why I made the best choice in never EVER trying drugs. Although this doesn't stop there no, no, no sir, it doesn't after that TMI of a scene I wished never to watch again I stumble upon multiple scenes of disturbing images as well as Ewan finally getting detoxed from all the dope he's been injecting and it literally gets into that horrendous disturbed feeling in your gut that I was literally was wanting to look away and say to make this stop. And Ewan's character apparently hooks up with an underaged teen for sure that's horrifying but all the other elements that happen in the movie outweigh the underage romance. Danny Boyle said that he wanted his actors to watch older movies like the Hustler and A Clockwork Orange, for which "good for you" though the way I see it after watching this movie I think he was may or unintentionally wanting to be more dark and gross than A Clockwork Orange in my opinion. Granted there are some great comedic tones to the movie if you go back on YouTube and rewatch some of those scenes, but watching the whole movie for the first time the disturbing images outweighed the comedy to this movie. I will give this movie a ton of credit this film does have that crazy f**ked up feel to it, but more importantly explores the grunge puck rock themes in the early to late nineties that you forget happened but also focuses on a character that just wants a fresh start as well as getting off of the addiction but more importantly trying to get rid of friends that do nothing but steal and sell your stuff to get rich in a hurry, furthermore believe that's where the great comedic value comes into the movie. Good news you can't watch this movie on any streaming service you'll only get the sequel, in which I'm surprised now after watching the first film why they need to make a sequel because how these nut jobs are able to survive the heroin addiction is beyond me. So, now that I have this movie on Blu-ray and consider this movie as a good once over type film, like A Clockwork Orange, what I'm probably going to use this movie for, is if I have kids and they do stupid s**t like getting into drugs I'm going to sit them down and make them watch this film twice so they can get the horror of drug addiction in the back of their brain memories. Though hopefully that won't happen, I'm confident that won't happen because I know the difference between right and wrong in the world.