Review Of Three Movies: Trainspotting, Ferris Buellers Day Off And Ju

Review Of Three Movies: Trainspotting, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Jurassic Park

Trainspotting

Trainspotting is a drop-dead look at a dead-end lifestyle. Set among the junkies

and thugs of Edinburgh's slums and made by (director Danny Boyle, writer John

Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald) that created "Shallow Grave," "Trainspotting"

caused a sensation in Britain, where it took in more money than any U.K. film

except "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and ignited strong controversy over its

attitude toward heroin. Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), the film's narrator,

unleashes an overpowering verbal torrent that gets things off to an aggressive

start.

"Choose life," Renton insists in voice-over as store detectives chase after him

for shoplifting. "Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a

[beep] big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and

electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance.

Choose fixed-income mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your

friends. . . . "But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to

choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who

needs reasons when you've got heroin?" It is very difficult to resist the film's

great energy.

"Trainspotting's" subject matter is raw and raunchy, including AIDS, overdoses

and violence as well as obscene situations described in unprintable language.

This is a film that makes you laugh of things that can in no way be described as

funny. How is this possible? In the film's signature scene, where Renton, in

search of some lost opium suppositories, dives head-first into "the filthiest

toilet in Scotland" and emerges in a sublime and spacious undersea world. And

despite Renton's celebrated saying on the pleasures of heroin, boasting, "Take

the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere

near it," "Trainspotting" is only interested in drugs because its characters are.

Most feeble of the characters is the glasses-wearing Spud (Ewen Bremner). Most

devious is Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), who knows all there is to know about

Sean Connery. Most innocent is Tommy (Kevin McKidd), whose insistence on telling

the truth no matter what is viewed as a fatal weakness. And most dangerous is

the beer-drinking, heroin-hating psychopath Begbie (Robert Carlyle)..

Some of the funniest parts include Renton's sudden passion for the mysterious

Diane (Kelly Macdonald) and Tommy's attempt to get the boys interested in the

outdoors, which leads to Renton's "I hate being Scottish" tirade, which ends:

"Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the

other hand, are colonized by wankers.