T2 Trainspotting
starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle
screenplay by John Hodge
directed by Danny Boyle
Rating: ◊◊◊◊◊
Based Trainspotting (1993) and on Porno (2002) and by Scottish play write and novelist Irvine Welsh, T2 Trainspotting is a British crime/comedy/drama film set in and around Edinburgh, Scotland. The film is a sequel to Danny Boyle's highly acclaimed 1996 film Trainspotting. T2 stars the original ensemble cast: Ewan McGregor (Renton), Ewen Bremner (Spud), Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy) and Robert Carlyle (Begbie). T2 is deliberately self-referential, with film-clips, music and echoes from the first film. The screenplay is based on Porno, with characters and elements lifted from the novel Trainspotting.
T2 picks up 20 years later. Renton took his stolen money and fled to Amsterdam. But the ups and downs of life see him return to Edinburgh where he meets his old friends. Begbie is in prison (but escapes for the duration of this film.) Spud is still a heroin addict. Sick Boy runs a pub and blackmails people with the help of a Rumanian prostitute, Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) on the side. Veronika is the most likeable person of the group. The prostitute with the heart of gold.
I don’t give a shit about Danny Boyle and his fucking depraved drug addict movies.
Here’s the thing: I never liked Trainspotting. I don’t give a shit about Danny Boyle and his fucking depraved drug addict movies. I never understood why it was so highly regarded. It’s gross. It’s British working class gross. Filthy, drug addicted, criminal unemployed Scottish dead-enders with really annoying accents. It was a portrait of indulgent depravity. T2 is just more of the same. Is it an honest portrayal of a certain segment of Scottish society that can’t and ought not to be ignored? Maybe yes, maybe no. But I didn’t appreciate it. It was gross watching it twenty years ago, and it’s still gross today. I wanted to take a shower afterward to wash Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh off my skin.
Robert Carlyle is probably a great actor. He’s a renowned method actor who totally immerses himself in his roles in order to achieve authenticity. But I’ve never liked him. He’s a rough, gruff Glaswegian.