Product Description

From the director of 28 DAYS LATER ... The motion picture sensation that wowed critics and audiences nationwide, TRAINSPOTTING delivers a wild mix of rebellious action and wicked humor! It's the story of four friends as they try to make it in the world on their own terms ... and who end up planning the ultimate scam! Powered by an outstanding cast of stars including Ewan McGregor (BIG FISH, STAR WARS EPISODES I, II & III) Robert Carlyle (THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, THE FULL MONTY) and Jonny Lee Miller (DRACULA 2000, MANSFIELD PARK), and a high-energy soundtrack, TRAINSPOTTING is spectacular, groundbreaking entertainment!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3823 in DVD
• Brand: MCGREGOR,EWAN
• Released on: 2004-06-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Collector's Edition, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 94 minutes

Amazon.com
With its hallucinatory visions of crawling dead babies and a grungy plunge into the filthiest toilet in Scotland, you might not think Trainspotting could have been one of the best movies of 1996, but Danny Boyle's film about unrepentant heroin addicts in Edinburgh is all that and more. That doesn't make it everybody's cup of tea (so unsuspecting viewers beware), but the film's blend of hyperkinetic humor and real-life horror is constantly fascinating, and the entire cast (led by Ewan McGregor and Full Monty star Robert Carlyle) bursts off of the screen in a supernova of outrageous energy. Adapted by John Hodge from the acclaimed novel by Irving Welsh, the film was a phenomenal hit in England, Scotland, and (to a lesser extent) the U.S. For all of its comedic vitality and invigorating filmmaking, the movie is no ode to heroin, nor is it a straight-laced cautionary tale. Trainspotting is just a very honest and well-made film about the nature of addiction, and it doesn't pull any punches when it is time to show the alternating pleasure and pain of substance abuse. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
Even though the packaging may state something else, the menus of this two-disc set label it "the definitive edition." New 2003 elements are added to pieces created for the film's release and Criterion laser disc. The Retrospective features are labeled "Then" and "Now" and smartly don't cover the same ground. For example, "The Sound of the Film" explores sound mixing in the "Then" segment and the popular soundtrack in the "Now" bit. Other highlights include new interviews with key behind-the-scenes talent and several worthwhile deleted scenes. The multi-angle presentation on the needle injection scene will test your nerve. Best is how much interest and energy the talents ooze throughout the discs. "The "international cut" restores a few seconds of footage, but the deleted scenes are not incorporated as they were in other versions. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Deeper than a heroin addiction
I'd like to begin this review with my pre-viewing expectations - - ZILCH! I had never heard of this movie, had not viewed the trailer or read the box, I just sat down on my sofa as my husband pressed "play" on the remote and jumped right in with both feet. The first few minutes made me squirm, I was thinking "oh no, a movie glorifying drugs, with lots of F-words and thick accents", but the narration of the main character, Mark Renton, was intellectually stimulating, so I listened more closely and allowed myself to become immersed in the story. The characters in this story are ugly, heroin-addicted losers, but they are portrayed as very real people - - yes, they are bad, but they are not evil. Their lives are extremely grim and repugnant. I've always wondered how people addicted to heroin can live their lives thinking they are living normally, and the addiction is so powerful it renders them powerless to live any other way, but then I realized almost anything can be considered an addiction - - we all wrestle with something, be it our weight, our ethics, our punctuality, etc.. Moments when we convince ourselves it will be the last time, until the next time.

The film makes some interesting comparisons between a "normal" life, and the twisted lives of these characters. You notice small hypocrisies, such as the friend in the pub railing against drug use, while he obviously has an alcohol and an anger-management problem. This film also addresses the issues of loyalty, culture, politics - - with some scathing commentary on consumerism and capitalism - - and some digs at the "Just Say No" and "Choose Life" rallying cries. I particularly liked the ending - - there were no sweeping revelations for the characters, they remained true to their weaknesses, true to their characters.

There are plenty of sad, sick moments, and there are some very funny moments, even through the darkness, and the wit of each character is fantastic. Some of the most imaginative sequences I enjoyed immensely, but felt as though they could've done without the extremism and still kept a good flowing story. Still, they certainly made a strong point in the scene involving the most disgusting toilet in Scotland. As for the dialogue, I am going to have to watch it again, just to make sure I caught it all. My husband and I finally admitted we weren't understanding the dialogue as fully as we would've liked, so we switched to the "hearing-impaired" sub-titles about 30 minutes into the film. The Scottish accents are the thickest!

The acting is terrific, across the board. I was shocked - - just flabbergasted! - - as the film ended and I saw Ewan McGregor was Mark Renton! He looked so gaunt and ill, not the charming and handsome Ewan McGregor of 'Moulin Rouge'!

Definitely not a movie for the kids, 'Trainspotting' is a film everyone should see once, even if the topic is unsettling. Plus, I give it extra stars for utilizing my favorite descriptive noun - - "wanker". I also appreciated the integration of Iggy Pop's song "Lust for Life", knowing that it was written after Iggy had kicked his heroin habit and had a newfound lust for life. I'm just glad to hear that song used anywhere other than car commercials!

Why would I want to do that?
Is the rhetorical question asked by Renton (Ewan McGregor) early on in the movie. That sums up the complete hold that heroin exerts on the lives of main characters of the movie and the horrendous consequences of this addiction.

I have heard that Trainspotting has been criticized as glorifing drugs. People making this comment must be out of their minds. I have never seen such a powerful indictment of heroin and its effects and I ever had any inclination to try the stuff then a single viewing of the movie cured me forever.

Most movies that I watch leave no lasting impression on me but many of the scenes in Trainspotting will stay with me for a very long time. There are moments that make you laugh out loud (Spud's job interview for example) and others that are some of the most powerful and disturbing film images that I have ever seen.

Danny Boyle and co. have do a marvellous job of making a film about real people and real lives while making it compelling viewing at the same time. The soundtrack is excellent just to round off the experience.

Despair, Brilliantly Told
While there is definitely a form of macabre humor to this tail, "Trainspotting," one of the most brilliant films to come out of Britain in decades, is no laughing matter.

It captures an entire voice--a feeling--a depth of despair among a group of disaffected, addicted, hopeless young men in the slums of Edinburgh. Having been in Scotland many times, and known young men of this age, I found this grim portrait all the more frightening and heartbreaking. They are essentially beautiful young men (some of them, anyway) who are casually and uncaringly dying while injecting themselves unflinchingly with heroine.

No part of the heroine experience is hidden from the viewer, and I advise those who don't want to share the experience to avoid this movie. For the hovels, toilets, dingy bars, and alleys where these mates shoot up, and the close-up of the bloody needles, the mixing of the drug, and every other horror, is unrelenting. Add in the fear of AIDS, some hopelessly mindless and unfulfilling sex, a dead baby, real and hallucinated, and you have some idea of the nature of this film.

So what makes it so brilliant? Everything. From the acting of Ewan MacGregor et al. to the spare script, to the photography, to every last detail, this is the quintessential picture of despair in the true noir sense. It is very hard to watch, very hard to think about--but is an experience not to be missed, and it is one that does not leave you anytime soon.