TRAINSPOTTING Blu-ray Review

Lionsgate Home Entertainment:

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose...Trainspotting. Director Danny Boyle (127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire) thrills in this "original, daring" (Salon.com) tale of a group of young drug addicts wheeling through blue collar Edinburgh that earned an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay. Starring Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!) in an unforgettable breakthrough performance, Trainspotting electrified audiences and critics with its hilariously dark humor, stunning visuals and sharp honest take on both the exhilarating highs, and the terrifying lows, of addiction.

All these years later, Trainspotting remains a visceral, invigorating experience. Danny Boyle has the incredible ability to take any activity and make it vital, even heroin addiction.  His visual style really found it's feet in Trainspotting, with it's exaggerated color palette and epileptic editing style; but it is the combination of this and the propulsive soundtrack of '70s and '80s pop music that makes this film's heart beat.

I'm not going to review Trainspotting, the film is now fifteen years old, and critical opinions are what they are.  I love the film, and while I had only intended to look at the disc academically for the purpose of this review, I found myself engaged and sucked in all over again.  I must have seen Trainspotting a dozen times over the years, but there is something about it that still hits the spot.  The film is populated with well-drawn characters who each have their moments to shine, despite the film being ostensibly Ewan McGregor's coming out party.  Spud's hilarious job interview, Tommy's mania upon discovering the disappearance of a very personal piece of property, Sick Boy's Connery obsession, and Begbie's general attitude toward everything all leave indelible marks on the viewer.

If you've seen it before you know what to expect, and if you haven't, where have you been for the last dozen years?  Trainspotting is an invigorating, and sometimes overly glamorizing, look at a very destructive vice.  The main bone of contention with the film is that it makes heroin use look less evil than it really is, but the fact is that no one had really ever shown why people get hooked in the first place, that is what Trainspotting does.  Luckily, it does tell the rest of the story, and it is even uglier than most people could imagine, but riveting.

The Disc:

Trainspotting has been released in several other territories on Blu-ray, and the Lionsgate release is about as good as I've seen.  The picture quality won't dazzle, but the film was a low budget one, which is something people tend to forget.  It looks solidly filmic, but the detail won't jump out at you like some newer and/or bigger budget productions will.  Where the disc really blows away former editions is the DTS-HD 5.1 audio track.  The music is such a character in Trainspotting that this audio track is crucial, and it blows the old DVD out of the water.   Kudos to Lionsgate for this audio mix, it is incredible!

If you've owned the previous versions of Trainspotting, like the 10th anniversary edition, you know what the extras are.  There is nothing new on this disc, but the old stuff isn't too bad.  One thing that is irritating is the "then" and "now" sections of the extras menu due to the fact that "now" refers to extras created for the 2004 special editions on DVD, and everything is dated as being from 2003. This is an opportunity missed in my opinion, but doesn't detract from the film and it's high quality presentation. Oh, and it's cheap! Recommended.