Human suffering trivialised by YouTube type treatment

Rating: 3/10 (26 January 2011)

I feel compelled to write my first IMDb review after seeing this film in the same week that I also saw the Kings Speech. Both films have a very basic premise that requires some imaginative screenplay to sustain them. Climber falls down ravine but survives after resorting to desperate measures; Man becomes become King unexpectedly and has to overcome speech defect. The results of both dramas are already known before the films were made. So Danny Boyle decides to rework Trainspotting to give his story some legs - man cycling/running across landscape to pumping music,liquid/ drugs travelling down tubes, flashback/hallucinatory images, gross out gore etc etc. We have seen it all before including Shallow Grave . Has DB a lavatorial fetish ? Man dives down excrement filled lavatories in both Trainspotting and Slumdog now he drinks urine and dives into fetid puddle in 127. Throughout, the struggle is trivialised with gimmickry, and the hero evokes no sympathy; now in comparison I even empathise with Joe Simpson in Into the Void ! Yet Kings Speech relies on splendid dialogue, appropriate soundtrack and quality acting with the mild outrage of the f word. The lasting message of 127 is a Health and Safety moral - always tell someone where you are going and make sure you take your Swiss Army Knife. No more than that . An Oscar , I hope not. However none of the above should detract from Aron's bravery, his story deserved more sympathetic treatment.