Choose life, choose Trainspotting!

Rating: 9/10 (12 February 2002)

Wonderful darkly comic tale of a group of Scottish twenty-something's and their pathetic lives. Highly controversial on its release, Trainspotting was accused of glamorising the use of drugs when it clearly doesn't instead showing how they can get out of control and totally destroy lives. The story centres around heroin addict Renton (McGregor  in a career launching role) and his loser pals, Sickboy (Jonny Lee Miller  Hackers), Tommy (Kevin McKidd  Small Faces), Spud (Ewen Bremner  Snatch) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle  Plunkett and McLane). Renton narrates his way through his struggle to beat his habit and change his awful life for the better. McGregor is good and so is debutante Kelly McDonald as his schoolgirl girlfriend but Carlyle is the star if the show with a truly psychotic and chilling performance.