Trainspotting's thrilling ride

The first scene of Trainspotting stomps down hard as the camera rides Mark Renton's (Ewan MacGregor) boot hitting the sidewalk. Renton and his mates, Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner), and Tommy (Kevin McKidd) run like mad through the streets of Scotland, and the camera runs with them, dashing around corners and halting traffic. The boys run as Renton's narration spits out what it is they're running away from--choices. Who wants to choose a life, a future, a big screen television, a mortgage payment? "Why would I want to a thing like that?" asks Renton. "Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?"

Trainspotting

So begins Trainspotting, the new ride from Danny Boyle, director of the eerie cult fave Shallow Grave. Originally a novel by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting translates famously onto the big screen.

Formidable hype surrounds this film. Thought of by many as the "alternative" hit movie of the year, Trainspotting has a lot to live up to but delivers a smashing hit.

The first scenes of the movie introduce us to Renton's world of heroin. We see him and his blokes shooting up in a friend's flat. The plot begins when Renton decides to kick his heroin habit, but we see how much control the drug has over its victim in the destined-to-be-infamous "Worst Toilet in Scotland" scene. Renton looses his hits in a toilet and--although the scenery rivals any New York subway cesspool--he scours the toilet and finally plunges head-first into the bowl to retrieve his fix.

Renton swims deep into this surrealistic sea in the toilet searching for his sunken treasure. Boyle almost makes us forget the revolting previous scene with the clear water and ethereal light behind Renton as he swims. Not for long, though, because Renton pops back into the real world via the toilet.

This juxtaposition of bizarre surreality and ugly reality characterizes Trainspotting. In another scene Renton literally sinks into the carpet just after overdosing and is rudely sucked back up into the real world by the camera when a nurse gives him an injection while in the hospital.

The film does not romanticize heroin addiction, as many critics have complained. It is more subtle than that: scenes that may seem romantic in setting are cleverly manipulated to make us pity and even deride those involved, often making us feel as though we are a Peeping Tom patronizing the object of our voyeuristic fancy.

Boyle uses the camera alternately as a friend and as a spectator. He closes in for private moments, like the orgasmic heroin high, then lags back at times to expose all corners of an empty room. The camera occasionally acts as a tool to show the audience what it feels like to be addicted. Less subtle, but no less effective, than Tarantino's heroin-induced vision of Jack Rabbit Slim's in Pulp Fiction, Boyle cuts in and out, with all the fluidity of a jackhammer, on characters high on speed or heroin.

The story moves from heroin to sex (the two are often equated and used as substitutes for one another), and all the boys have follies in the beds of their respective girlfriends. Ranging from predictable misunderstandings to morbidly embarrassing mistakes, each bloke has a reason to come running back to heroin as a "full-time job." Again coupling the ridiculous with the tragic, Boyle shows the boys stealing prescriptions and televisions from convalescent homes and mugging tourists in pub toilets to support their habit.

Not surprisingly, things begin to sour. Boyle repeats shots from the first scene, but suddenly there are consequences. In a remarkably directed sequence showing the power of the heroin addiction, Renton is locked in his bedroom as his parents attempt to nurse him off the drug. The room grows longer and longer like a demented carnival ride swallowing his bed. All the ramifications of his lifestyle come back to haunt him in a brilliant nightmare sequence, and our hero becomes a pathetic heap of striped pajamas begging his parents for "one last hit!" He sweats and convulses as a mesmerizing rave beat pumps hard, energizing his torment.

The performances by this relatively unknown crop of actors are astonishing. I never once stopped to consider what fine acting was going on; in fact, I was never aware of any acting at all. I eagerly followed each character through every inconceivable scene as though they were my own personal guide into this frighteningly pleasing world.

Trainspotting ends as Renton rolls through the list of pop frills he was running from at the beginning. Only this time, he wants them all. Boyle brings us full circle, but leaves us wondering who's better-- the junkies who spit at society's values and create their own reality, or the rest of us who run with the new Renton, escaping his world only to enter ours.