movie film review | chris tookey
 
     
     
 

Trance

 (15)
© Unknown - all rights reserved
     
  Trance Review
Tookey's Rating
1 /10
 
Average Rating
4.67 /10
 
Starring
James McAvoy , Rosario Dawson, Vincent Cassel
Full Cast >
 

Directed by: Danny Boyle
Written by: Joe Ahearne, John Hodge

 
Tookey's Review
Pro Reviews
Mixed Reviews
Anti Reviews
Cast
 
 
Released: 2013
   
Genre: CRIME
THRILLER
   
Origin: UK
   
Colour: C
   
Length: 101
 
 


 
Boyle’s bore.
Reviewed by Chris Tookey



You’ve got to admire anyone who thinks of making the Queen jump out of a helicopter. There’s so much goodwill towards director Danny Boyle after his triumphant Olympics opening ceremony that it feels almost treasonable to point out that his new film is a tedious shambles.

For the second time in three weeks, nice-guy James McAvoy is embarrassingly out of his depth in a role that’s simply too dark and dangerous for him to bring off. He plays an amoral art expert who becomes involved in a heist, receives a bang on the head from an accomplice (Vincent Kassel) and suffers amnesia about where the stolen painting is. So he goes to a beautiful hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson, pictured) for a cure.

Numerous noirish twists ensue. The screenplay by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge becomes not so much implausible as ridiculous, augmented by arty directorial flourishes that make it even sillier.

The whole thing turns into preposterous camp, with gratuitously repulsive episodes of Grand Guignol and abrupt character-reversals that make you wonder what substances the writers were inhaling.

If Hollywood is turning its face against sex scenes, nobody’s told Danny Boyle. He films his then girlfriend, Rosario Dawson, with salacious glee; and her impressive womanly curves were almost enough to make me give it a consolation star.

But this is a frustrating return to the undisciplined, careless Boyle who made such a hash of The Beach. You’d never guess he was the Oscar-winning director of Slumdog Millionaire, which had a story that made sense and characters you cared about.

Okay, Trance is never boring, but there is a point at which this flashy, alienating nonsense becomes no laughing matter, and you just wish the pain would be over as quickly as possible.


Key to Symbols