Haywire (2011)

This is a revenge story where a female black ops soldier gives it back to her male colleagues for setting her up in a mission at Barcelona. The motives behind the mission are obviously money. But, she escapes and succeeds in killing the people who were responsible for this

The film has some terrific action and chase sequences thanks to Gina Carano, a trained mixed martial arts fighter, kick boxer and fitness freak. It is fun seeing this busty action heroine strutting her stuff. The film has a good soundtrack too.

Channing Tatum and Ewan McGregor have minuscule roles. Antonio Banderas also makes the cast in another small role. Michael Douglas is there too.

The presentation and theme is similar to Kill Bill, though the motive for revenge here is purely professional.

VERDICT: Simple payback movie with a busty action heroine and her credible fight sequences. Strict one time watch.  

Trainspotting (1996)

The Plot

It focuses on the addiction to drugs particularly heroin, that a gang of buddies have. It is set in Scotland. Mark Renton, Sick Boy, Spud, Tommy and Begbie are the buddies in focus. Mark and Spud are big time into drugs and they commit a crime for which Spud is sent to prison and Mark is put into continued rehab.

Mark gets out of his addiction with great difficulty overcoming some intense withdrawal trips. Tommy is ditched by his girlfriend and he later contracts a virus through cat shit called toxoplasmosis.  Begbie isn’t into drugs but he is a real jerk who hurts people according to his whims and fancies. Sick Boy loses his baby due to his negligence and he is a pimp.

Mark has a girlfriend Diane who is a school girl. He feels guilty for screwing a schoolgirl. Mark gets back to a normal life post his rehab and he settles in life as a real estate broker. But his jobless junkie mates come back to him with a drug deal in London with some Russians, that fetches them a cool 16000 pounds

In the end Mark ditches Begbie and Sick Boy without any regret and leaves Spud’s share and escapes with the rest of the money to lead a normal materialistic life like other citizens. Begbie is jailed for a previous crime as well and Spud happily takes his share.

                                                                                 

Hits

• Ewan McGregor as Mark literally lives the role of the drugged junkie. Particularly the scenes where he is desperate for a shot, the way he enjoys his trips, the way he is haunted by the withdrawal symptoms  etc. etc. the getup is also very apt for this 'yoyo' type junkie who doesn’t care to live by the rules until the very end.


• Some of the scenes are plain crazy and never seen before. The way Mark dives into the ugliest toilet seat in Scotland to get the heroin that he just excreted and the way the imaginary baby crawls on the ceiling while Mark is withdrawing from drugs. Creepy and utter disdain for normal cinematic norms. Hats off to Danny Boyle.


• Among the other junkies, the guy who comes as Spud has a real weird getup and he acts and behaves like a real drug addict. His interview scene where he is doped and answers all the questions hyper-actively is a riot.


• The soundtrack is pure 'yoyo' and has many dance beats. Particularly for the withdrawal symptoms scene, it is kick-ass.


• The dialogs at the very start and end of the movie about how materialistic most of the population is, and how the same dialogs are used to explain Mark’s change in mindset is a nice directorial touch.

VERDICT

A pioneering movie for the presentation, style and the way drug effects are portrayed. Guy Ritchie must have been inspired by this movie’s style, as all his movies have a similar style to this movie. Cheers to Danny Boyle