The Facts:
Synopsis: An art auctioneer who has become mixed up with a group of criminals partners with a hypnotherapist in order to recover a lost painting.
Stars: James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, Rosario Dawson
Director: Danny Boyle
Rated: R
Running Length: 101 minutes
Trailer Review: Here
TMMM Score: (6/10)
Review: There’s something so pleasing about watching a movie and even before the credits roll being able to tell who directed it. UK director Boyle won an Oscar for directing 2008’s Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire (hated the movie, loved Boyle’s work) but with his latest film Trance the director has gone back to his stylized new wave Hitchcock roots that came to light in 1994’s brilliantly twisted thriller Shallow Grave.
What Trance can’t do, however, it out-do that Boyle mini-masterpiece and that’s because that for all the style that Boyle puts on the proceedings, it can’t hide the fact that the story is a barely-there hodge podge of any number of quadruple cross heist thrillers. Despite an intriguing opening and a rather nicely conceived first half, it’s not long before the film gets itself so deep in the muck that that can’t untie the noose it’s created and winds up dangling.
When the movie began I sat back happily and let the Boyle camera angles, attention to detail, and breaking of the forth wall wash over me. This is the Boyle that I came to enjoy first in Shallow Grave then in Trainspotting, Sunshine, Millions, 28 Days Later…(I’m conveniently leaving out The Beach and A Life Less Ordinary…you should too) and the director seems energized by a film set in the heart of London and infused with a pulsating rhythm that he totally is in control of.
As the film progresses, however, the multiple layers of betrayal are not really peeled away but shuffled down the deck so you’re never quite able to follow along with where the twists are taking you. Is McAvoy’s character a harmless patsy that doesn’t know who he can trust…or is there more to him that the film is deliberately leaving out to spring at us in the final reel? And what of Dawson’s hypnotherapist who seems to be playing both sides of the fence between McAvoy and the oddity that is Cassell as a thief looking for a painting McAvoy was in charge of – is she a femme fatale that will be the last person standing when a hum-drum quartet of criminals turns on each other?
All of our questions are eventually answered in no uncertain terms but to say that the payoff is disappointing is like saying the Mona Lisa was a good first draft. The film winds up feeling so ordinary and rote, despite the best efforts of McAvoy, Cassel, Dawson, and Boyle but it’s the script that does no one any favors. I kept wanting the movie to get back on track and end with a bang – some may find great entertainment in the movie but like February’s Side Effects (another film with good actors working with second rate material) this one made me more frustrated as it kept striking out.
There is some good in the film and that’s mostly courtesy of Boyle and his crack team of creative personnel involved with the movie. The cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is impeccable, making excellent use of spotless office buildings and luxury apartments. I also enjoyed Rick Nelson’s score and an eclectic soundtrack that gave the film a flow like many Boyle films do – I have the scores to several Boyle films and his choice in music echoes his clean-cut editing/compositions.
For 100 minutes, Trance mostly gets the job done though I do wish the material had been up to snuff with the group of people charged with making it come to life. While it has the feel of an old-school Boyle offering, the also-ran script ultimately disappoints leaving the view not so much entranced as dazed.