Trainspotting (1996)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: A brutal, often times funny, other times terrifying portrayal of drug addiction in Edinburgh. Not for the faint of heart, but well worth viewing as a realistic and entertaining reminder of the horrors of drug use.
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Cast
as Mark Renton
as Spud
as Sick Boy
as Tommy
as Begbie
as Diane
as Swanney
as Mr. Renton
as Mrs. Renton
as Allison
as Lizzy
as Gail
as Gavin, U.S. tourist
as Mikey
as Game Show Host
as Dealer
as Andreas
as Gail's Mother
as Gail's Father
as Diane's Mother
as Diane's Father
as Diane's Father
as Man 1
as Man 2
as Woman
as Sheriff
as Estate Agent
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Critic Reviews for Trainspotting
All Critics (77) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (69) | Rotten (8) | DVD (16)
Trainspotting's saving grace is that there's a heck of a lot of entertainment value in this particular form of shallowness.
Trainspotting, buoyed by a great Brit Pop soundtrack and Brian Tufano's agile cinematography, captures the stoned-out, gut-churning experience of hardcore addiction with hallucinogenic acuity.
The characters are without recognizable virtues, and neither they nor the movie asks us to like them. But they are full of energy and underplayed wit, endlessly picking themselves up off the filthy floor.
Trainspotting is a searing pop-art portrait of a lost generation blowing out its brains. As they rail, chuckle, shout and dive into darkness, you're trapped yourself between a bellylaugh and a scream.
The film is about joy -- in conniving and surviving, in connecting with audiences, in its own fizzy, jizzy style. And that's why, compared with it, most other films look zombified.
A cocktail of scuzzy charm, nerve and despair that seduces and repulses in nearly equal proportions. It packs a jolt, all right. But it leaves you with a brutal hangover, too.
Audience Reviews for Trainspotting
Artistically constructed, and featuring a bravura performance from Ewan McGregor, Trainspotting craftily balances both a dark and charming tone.
Super Reviewer
5 stars
Super Reviewer
Spend some quality time with some Edinburgh chaps who realise that life in the modern day is realistically all mapped out for them and find that it is better to while away the time and the mind in a drug induced coma, it's more honest rather than to pretend to be "making a difference" for the benefit of some wankers who could give a shitte. Are they wrong? Often overblown, but fun telling of life in less touristy parts of Edinburgh.
Super Reviewer
Trainspotting Quotes
| Sick Boy: | All I'm trying to do is help you understand that The Name of the Rose is merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory. |
| Mark Renton: | What about The Untouchables? |
| Sick Boy: | I don't rate that at all. |
| Mark Renton: | Despite the Academy award? |
| Mark Renton: | Despite the Academy Award? |
| Sick Boy: | That means fuck all. The sympathy vote. |
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