Tag: Ewen Bremner

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Ridley Scott’s immersive combat film is politically simple but one of the great combat films

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Josh Hartnett (SSG Matt Eversmann), Ewan McGregor (SPC John Grimes), Eric Bana (SFC Norm ‘Hoot’ Gibson), Tom Sizemore (LTC Danny McKnight), Sam Shepard (General William F Garrison), Ron Eldard (CWO4 Michael Durant), William Fichtner (SFC Jeff Sanderson), Jeremy Piven (SW4 Clifton Wolcott), Ewen Bremner (SPC Shawn Nelson), Gabriel Casseus (SPC Mike Kurth), Hugh Dancy (SFC KURT Schmid), Jason Isaacs (CPT Mike Steele), Tom Hardy (SPC Lance Twombly), Orlando Bloom (PFC Todd Blackburn), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (MSG Gary Gordon), Johnny Strong (SFC Randy Shughart)

On 4 October 1993, the US won a pyrrhic victory supporting UN efforts to prevent genocide in the Somalian Civil War. A mission in Mogadishu to capture the lieutenants of rebel leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid collapsed into a desperate overnight street battle as Aidid’s forces rose up en masse (up to 4,000 of them) in an attempt to cut off and wipe out the c. 160 US troops.

Although the majority escaped, it was one of the most costly American operations since Vietnam, with the loss of 18 dead and 73 wounded and two Black Hawk helicopters shot down. As many as 2,000 Somalians were also killed. Pictures of the bodies of American soldiers dragged through the streets by Somalian rebels led to a major realignment of US foreign policy, with a reluctance to join future peace keeping operations (most notably the Rwandan genocide).

This is bought to the screen in a virtuoso directorial achievement by Ridley Scott, one of the most immersive and gripping war films ever made. Black Hawk Down doesn’t shirk on an inch of the war experience. Combat is loud, sudden, all-consuming and a barrage on the senses. It’s scary, confusing and always unforgiving. Mud, blood and dirt are flung into a camera that runs through streets alongside the soldiers, embedded with them under siege. The slightest lack of focus or mistake is punished by horrific injury or death. The battle is a nightmare of confusion and desperate improvisation in which neither side (especially the Americans) really knows what’s going on.

It’s not surprising they don’t. The film expertly demonstrates how a multi-approach plan (helicopters delivering ground forces, an armed convoy to collect prisoners) was effectively a rashly planned house of cards, which collapsed when the hornet’s nest of an uncontrolled city, crammed with thousands of potential hostiles, roadblocks and a prepared and dedicated enemy (willing to suffer a level of loss the Americans were not) was unleashed. Ground forces are stranded, helicopters shot down, the exposed convoy becomes a slow-moving hospital, all under constant fire in a dusty, urban centre where every single civilian could be a enemy combatant.

Scott shoots and edits this with pulse-pounding intensity, aided by the dizzying camera work of Sławomir Idziak and the high-octane cutting of Pietro Scalia, whose work grips you by the throat and never lets go. It’s a “grunt’s-eye” view of the war, that puts the viewer very much in the trenches with the soldiers. We pretty much join them running through gauntlets of bullets, ducking into foxholes and desperately trying to stay alive. Scott’s work is outstanding here, a brilliant depiction of the chaos of battle in which events are both intimidatingly out of control but also crystal clear to the audience, assembled with a never-lets-up energy leaving the viewer tense and breathless.

As Eric Bana’s fiercely professional Hoot says “it’s about the man next to you”. That’s very much what Black Hawk Down is about. There’s very little context about the American operation in Somalia, the Somalian people, the impact on long-term American politics… The film believes the whys and wherefores are less important than protecting the lives of your colleagues.

Argument has raged about whether Black Hawk Down is pro-war or not. I’m not convinced it is. Can a film which shows soldiers maimed, disfigured and literally torn in two, really be a celebration of war? But, what it clearly is, is pro-the American fighting man. The training and expertise of these soldiers – trained to make every shot count and keep their cool in terrifying situations – is crucial to their survival. (The scattergun indiscipline of the Somalian rebels is noticeable by comparison – and it’s fair to note that Black Hawk Down gives very little focus to the Somalians at all, other than as a faceless hostile mass).

The film is in awe of the soldiers’ willingness to sacrifice themselves for each other: the dramatization of Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart’s request to be dropped in to provide some sort of cover to one of the downed Black Hawk pilots (a request they know is a suicide mission) exemplifies “leave no man behind” bravery. Black Hawk Down is a tribute to soldiers.

Interestingly though, that also means it’s a film where characters are more important for what they do rather than who they are. We learn very little personal information about any of them. Hartnett’s newly-promoted SSG has sympathy for the Somali people and is nervous about his first command mission. McGregor’s admin officer is unsettled by his first field operation. Sizemore and Isaacs are professional officers, executing orders to the best of their ability; Fichtner and Bana experienced Rangers, samurai trained to adapt and improvise. But their personalities are only hooks to hang their deeds on. Each melts into the large cast as needed. Black Hawk Down is the triumph of the unit – be that fighting together or some member volunteering to die to help protect others.

It is fair to argue the film should have done more to contextualise events. Black Hawk Down focuses so much on celebrating the bravery of soldiers, it skips any political impact: it’s not made clear in the end captions that the US effectively withdrew from its peace-keeping responsibilities for years afterwards (only shocked back into it by 9/11). It never mentions the UN were slow to respond as they had been caught in an almost identical disaster a few weeks before (a lesson the US didn’t bother to learn from). It never mentions the cost of non-intervention in places like Rwanda. It never explores how these events – and American complacency, not least in the committed-but-unengaged soldiers – were a step toward a terrorist world that would culminate in 9/11.

Scott was aiming to make an immersive film. Perhaps his work on films like Body of Lies (and even Kingdom of Heaven) later was about adding more shading and depth to his presentation of world affairs (and critique of American policy). But, in its intent, Black Hawk Down is a triumph, one of the most unrelenting and compelling combat films ever made. You can argue it turns the Somalis into bogey men fighters – but it’s trying (rightly or wrongly) to be a representation of a single military action, from a single side’s perspective. And there is no doubt this is one of Scott’s finest achievements – and one of the great war films.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Gal Gadot prepares to save the world as Wonder Woman

Director: Patty Jenkins

Cast: Gal Gadot (Diana), Chris Pine (Steve Trevor), Robin Wright (Antiope), Danny Huston (General Erich Ludendorff), David Thewlis (Sir Patrick Morgan), Connie Nielsen (Hippolyta), Elena Anaya (Isabel Maru), Lucy Davis (Etta Candy), Saïd Taghmaouri (Sameer), Ewen Bremner (Charlie), Eugene Brave Rock (Chief Napi)

The DC universe has largely been a feeble attempt to parrot the success of Marvel, but without the latter’s charm or sense of fun. Each film has been a crushingly, overwhelmingly, teenage-boy focused series of grim super-bashing. So it’s a refreshing change that for their fourth film we get something different: lighter, funnier, warmer and focused on women rather than men.

On a hidden island, the Amazons live in hiding, waiting for the day they will return to save humanity from the villainous fallen god Ares. Diana (Gal Gadot) is the daughter of Hippolyta (Connie Nielson) queen of the Amazons, trained by Antiope (Robin Wright) into becoming their greatest warrior. Their timeless world is shattered in 1918, when American pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) crashlands his plane on the island – and explains the world is torn apart by war. Convinced this is Ares’ influence, Diana leaves the island with Steve – and finds herself thrown into a world she scarcely understands, with only her faith in the goodness of mankind to sustain her.

Wonder Woman is a change of pace from previous DC filmes – largely because it is pretty good. For the first time in this struggling universe, we have a bit of lightness and humour, and some engaging central characters. Which, considering the dark grimness of the previous entries is saying something. It’s bright, feels like a comic book (in a good way), has a decent story arc and, most importantly, you care. Is it the best comic book movie ever made? Of course not, but it’s a damn solid effort.

A lot of this is due to Gal Gadot being such an endearing lead. She gives Diana a perfect blend of serene, super-powered action goddess and naïve, charming lost-out-of-time sweetness. So one minute she can cooing over the first baby she’s ever seen, the next she can be laying out baddies in a scuffle. Her unquestioning faith in the fundamental goodness of people makes her innocence very winning. In fact, her secret weapon is empathy, a quality the film really embraces. Gadot’s skill is in keeping such unremitting goodness and positivity hugely loveable. She is terrific.

The film deals with her head-turning beauty with a witty affection (“You put specs on her and she’s suddenly not the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen?” Etta comments on one particularly feeble disguise option Steve suggests). In fact, the romance between Diana and Steve (Chris Pine similarly engaging as an “above average” man head over heels in love) is really well drawn – he clearly adores her, while she has a shy, almost teenage crush which blossoms over time into a genuine affection. It’s a very innocent and heart-warming romance, that plays out extremely well.

Needless to say as well, the film makes a fine counter-balance to the leering cameras you see in other films. Diana’s unmatchable competence is immediately recognised by Steve: while Steve understands the world, Diana is very much the hero, for all her fish-out-of-water naïveté. The film holds off a reveal of the costume for a long time – but when it is, it’s not a sexualised moment, but one of awe. The opening section of the movie, with its Amazonian islanders, also allows plenty of ass-kicking to be given to the women (Robin Wright is especially terrific as an Amazonian general – she should get her own Taken style action series).

Wonder Woman is not perfect. Structurally it’s pretty similar to other origin stories. Much of the backstory makes little sense, while the powers (or not) of the Amazonians in comparison with Diana are poorly explained. Away from the charm of the lead characters, nothing feels particularly new – none of the action sequences feel unique, and are shot with competence rather than inspiration. The final battle briefly looks like it might do something different, before it becomes an all too familiar CGI bashing.

I’m also not sure about setting the film in the First World War. Seeing Diana lead a successful charge through the trenches where real people died in their thousands, somehow doesn’t sit quite right. It’s uncomfortable to watch a cartoon hero walking across no man’s land into gunfire, just as thousands of real people had to, but without super-powers to make it a moment of awesome cool. They just died; it wasn’t the setting for an action sequence, oh a moment of “wow she’s cool”.

I’m not sure about the film’s use of the grim trenches of the First World War for kick-ass action

Unlike the Second World War (where at least we know the SS were completely despicable) its portrayal of German soldiers as mostly faceless villains feels unjust – these were largely just ordinary people in a horrendous situation. Making Luddendorf a psychotic, lunatic also feels uncomfortable – he was real. Would it have been so difficult to make up a General von Baddie? (It doesn’t help that Danny Huston gives a truly abysmal performance of over-the-top hamminess). This is an area where Captain America handled its setting much better – the film may have been set in a real war, but the villains are specifically Hydra soldiers, a made-up army of made-up people who had consciously sworn allegiance to Evil. The First World War was a complex tragedy in shades of grey – presenting it as a good vs evil, with the Germans eager to embrace a horrifying nerve gas, just doesn’t feel right.

The strengths of the film are away from the action, and I think that’s why it has formed a bond with people. You genuinely care and root for Diana and Steve. It’s got wit and humour and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. When the action really kicks off the film isn’t anything special, but before then it has its moments: a charming sequence where Diana tries on (and breaks with various fighting moves) female costumes of the 1910s; a beautiful Renaissance-painting style flashback to the backstory of how the gods fell; the early fumbling scenes of romantic interest between Diana and Steve. It’s where the heart of the film is.

In fact that’s what the film is really about (and what really makes it work) – the heart at the centre. It gets a little bit lost in all the booms and bombast of the second half, but there is more than enough of it in the first half to carry it through. When the film is tightly focused you can really feel it coming to life. The more of that the better. It’s also a breath of fresh air for presenting such a strong female lead, whom the men are defined by their relationship to (rather than vice versa). It’s fun and it’s heart-warming. Its old ideas presented from a fresh perspective

Match Point (2005)

Love and lust collide in Woody Allen’s bizarrely classless Britain

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Chris Wilton), Scarlett Johansson (Nola Rice), Emily Mortimer (Chloe Hewett Wilton), Matthew Goode (Tom Hewett), Brian Cox (Alec Hewett), Penelope Wilton (Eleanor Hewett), Ewen Bremner (Inspector Dowd), James Nesbitt (Detective Mike Banner), Rupert Penry-Jones (Henry), Margaret Tyzack (Mrs Eastby), Alexander Armstrong (Mr Townsend)

Match Point was originally intended to be filmed in New York, but Woody Allen could only raise the cash in Britain – so the location was shifted to London. The effect is a little bit like Julian Fellowes switching Downton Abbey to become a kitchen-sink drama in Liverpool: research has been done, the facts are all ticked off, but the understanding of the people and their situation just isn’t there. Maybe Allen should have hired Fellowes as a consultant. At least Fellowes could have told him an upper-class Covent Garden opera buff probably isn’t going to be in raptures about Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s The Woman in White.

Chris Winter (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is a tennis pro, now making a living as a coach in an upmarket London club. He coaches Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode), and they discover a shared love of opera. Soon Chris is a regular visitor to the Hewitt family, a suitor and later husband to Tom’s sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer) and an employee at his father’s big city firm. He has everything he wants – except for Nola Rice (Scarlett Johnasson), Tom’s American actress fiancée…

The film was critically acclaimed in America but received a much more muted response here in Blighty. I can see why. Allen’s main problem is that he is tone deaf to the class hierarchy in this country. As such, he creates a Britain here that is close to something we would recognise, but subtly off. Chris is clearly from a lower social class than the family he marries into, he’s employed as a coach in a tennis club and he’s clearly less well travelled than the others. The family he marries into has a massive country house with servants, goes shooting at the weekend, runs a huge London business – it’s a modern day Downton Abbey.

If the same story was created by a British writer and director, Chris would clearly be presented as an ambitious, even ruthless, social climber looking to move up the ladder by doing everything he can to marry into a rich family and inveigling himself into their lives. Allen, however, doesn’t present the relationship like this – in fact, watching the film, I think it’s clear that he doesn’t really realise that Chris and his in-laws are in a totally different social class. He treats them all as if they are basically social equals, with money the only difference between them. For the British this just doesn’t fit in at all with our experience of the class system in this country – we know the Hewetts and Chris would always be aware of the social background difference between them, and that someone would comment upon it during the course of the film. No-one ever does. Class remains unmentioned. For a British person this just isn’t right.

So the “tragedy” if you like (or character flaw) of Chris should be that he is drawn sexually towards Nola Rice, despite it flying against his ambitions for moving upwards in his class. Instead, Allen’s script treats it solely as an affair of passion: the fact that the two “outsiders” in the social class (the working-class Irish boy and the American actress) are drawn to each other isn’t commented upon at all. The Hewetts are more suspicious of Rice because she’s an American and an actress, but the fact she (like Chris) doesn’t have a penny isn’t an issue. There is a lot of fertile ground here that any British director or writer would just know – but Allen fundamentally just doesn’t get it: he thinks the Hewetts are middle class not the loaded 1%+.

Of course, some of the problems are connected to Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the lead part. Watching him in this film, I can’t help but feel this is a solid 7/10 performance by an actor who normally bats a 5-6: he’s doing some of his best work on film, but his inadequacies as an actor can’t be overcome. It’s the eyes and voice for me: there just never seems much going on behind the eyes, and his unmodulated voice doesn’t bring any shading to his line deliveries. Chris should have the air of a slightly ruthless, ambitious but charming social climber – think Dennis Price in Kind Hearts and Coronets – but this is out of his range. Instead Chris is just a sort of blank that you can impose their own ideas on: it sort of works for the film, but it misses dozens of possibilities. He does well with the second half of the film and his guilt about the murder is well played, but it’s simply less subtle acting than is called for in the first half. He’s an average actor giving a performance above himself here.

Scarlett Johansson fares much better as a character who changes and develops dramatically over the course of the film, from mysterious, confident, sexy girlfriend to needy, frustrated, betrayed mistress. It’s a dramatic development throughout the film that is so skilfully done, it never feels jarring. Much of the cast is also strong: Matthew Goode is a real stand-out as Chris’ subtly spoilt brother-in-law, as is Emily Mortimer as a happy wife who never wants to think about the lie her life is. Rupert Penry-Jones and Margaret Tyzack have great cameos among the all star British cast.

The film takes place in a picture-postcard London (all the great sights are ticked off), and Allen directs with his traditional unfussy camera work. There is a certain pleasure to seeing big name British comic actors in tiny roles throughout (Paul Kaye, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Alexander Armstrong among others pop up in small roles).

Allen doesn’t understand Britain like he does Manhattan, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a decent film. The story’s theme of luck or chance vs fate doesn’t quite coalesce for me, but the feeling of events closing in on Chris late in the film does work very well, and I certainly felt the tension of whether Chris would get away with his eventual crime (even if I never really quite cared for Chris himself). Allen rates this as his favourite of his own films – which I guess goes to show you are never the best judge of your own work.

Great Expectations (2012)

Ralph Fiennes is ‘Ungry

Director: Mike Newell

Cast: Jeremy Irvine (Pip), Holliday Grainger (Estella), Helena Bonham-Carter (Miss Havisham), Ralph Fiennes (Magwitch), Robbie Coltrane (Jaggers), Jason Flemyng (Joe Gargery), Ewen Bremner (Wemmick), Sally Hawkins (Mrs. Joe), David Walliams (Pumblechook), Tamzin Outhwaite (Molly), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (Bentley Drummle)

There is one major problem with Mike Newell and screenwriter David Nicholl’s faithful adaptation of Great Expectations, one of Charles Dickens’ best loved novels. It’s such a faithful adaptation that it largely fails to say or do anything unique or interesting with the actual source material itself. Thus it basically joins the parade of adaptations of this novel on film, struggling to define itself from the competition.

For those who don’t know the story: young Pip has two defining encounters in his childhood. One is with escaped convict Magwitch (Ralph Fiennes), to whom he provides some help; the other with eccentric, secluded spinster Miss Havisham (Helena Bonham-Carter), who brings him in as a playfellow for her ward, Estella. As a young man, Pip (Jeremy Irvine) finds himself coming into “great expectations” from a mysterious benefactor, and moves to London where he encounters Estella (Holliday Grainger) once more.

Nicholl’s screenplay is a careful ticking off of all the events you would expect to see from either the book or previous versions: “I’m hungry boy”? Check. Mrs Joe? Check. Boxing with young Herbert Pocket? Check. Jaggers and Molly? Check. Wemmick, the Aged P and the cannon? Check. Bentley Drummle? Check. Joe Gargery in London? Check. Fire? Check. And so on, and so on. What’s really missing from the film is any sense of identity, any sense of a story it wishes to tell, or angle it wants to take on the source material. Instead it’s a picture book accompaniment to the novel. A beautifully filmed one, I will say (John Mathieson’s photography is lavishly good, and brilliantly captures the wide-open spaciousness of Kent compared to the dank, claustrophobic confines of London) but still a picture book.

It’s also decently acted throughout, with Jason Flemyng a stand-out as a decent, kind and loveable Joe (a part I think it’s almost impossible to fail in). Robbie Coltrane makes Jaggers a creepy charmer. Helena Bonham-Carter is, as one reviewer said, “almost too perfect casting” as Miss Havisham – her performance is a bit too familiar as a remix of her parts in Tim Burton films and Bellatrix Lastrange – but she is still very good in this role.

The closest the film gets to putting a twist on the novel is to front and centre the love-story angle between Pip and Estella. Even this, though, is not completely successful, largely due to time. Irvine and Grainger are fine performers (Grainger in particular does an awful lot with what can’t be more than 10-15 minutes of screentime), but adult Pip and Estella don’t have a scene together until halfway through the film. The film also is reluctant to lose anything major from the Gargery or Magwitch plotlines, meaning these get equal weighting with the Estella scenes. It’s possibly the only area where this adaptation is weaker than the BBC adaptation of a few years later, which effectively repositioned the story with a focus on father-son relationships, adding greater prominence to the Pip-Gargery-Magwitch relationships.

Mentioning that BBC adaptation makes a key point about the lack of individuality this production has. Casting my mind back to it, I found it very hard to remember or distinguish the differences between the two – both looked very similar, took similar decisions and featured similar casts. In fact, it became very hard to remember who was in what – an internet search for images for this film throws up plenty of images of Douglas Booth from the mini-series. It’s a small point, but I think captures the lack of uniqueness about this film.

I’ve been very hard on this film, which I feel a bit bad about as it is a very watchable and loyal adaptation and a perfect entry point for Dickens. It also has, in Ralph Fiennes, one superb performance. Of all the versions of Magwitch on screen, this surely has to be the best. Fiennes has the physicality and danger the role needs, but he also has an ethereal, almost child-like quality to him. You can believe this is a dangerous man, but also understand how he can be so passive and easily led. Fiennes’ Magwich takes a delight in the seeing the pleasures of others and has a sweet dedication to his own codes of loyalty. It’s a terrific performance – and actually emerges as the one unique and defining thing the film has to offer.

Trainspotting (1996)

Another happy day in Edinburgh… Ewen Bremner, Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle define their careers in the mid-1990s phenomenen

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Ewan McGregor (Renton), Ewen Bremner (Spud), Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy), Robert Carlyle (Begbie), Kevin McKidd (Tommy), Kelly Macdonald (Diane), Peter Mullan (Mother Superior), Eileen Nicholas (Mrs. Renton), James Cosmo (Mr. Renton), Shirley Henderson (Gail Houston), Stuart McQuarrie (Gav), Irvine Welsh (Mikey)

Surprise, surprise the Drug’s Don’t Work. They just make you worse. Honestly, watching Trainspotting you would have to be a Grade A moron or wilfully missing the point to ever imagine that this film could, in any way what-so-ever, be endorsing the life of heroin addiction. The unbalanced, unreliable, sickly-looking, soul crushingly blank-eyed losers in this film are no-ones idea of an aspiration. The fate of Tommy alone, starting the film as a health freak and ending it as a smacked out, paper thin, wasting AIDS victim could only encourage the truly unbalanced to take up drugs.

You must know the story: Ewan McGregor is our “hero” Renton, a junkie with delusions every so often (the film implies this has occurred multiple times) of going clean, kicking the habit only to find that he is always drawn back in – largely it seems due to his own weak personality. Fellow junkies include Spud (Ewan Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and later (tragically) Tommy (Kevin McKidd). On the edge of their junkie circle (not a user) is psychotic Begbie (Robert Carlyle) who doesn’t need drugs when he can get a high from starting a bar fight. The basic plot is slim in this whipper sharp film where experience is all – Renton goes clean, gets sucked back in, misses prison, goes cold turkey, escapes to London, gets sucked back into a drug deal. That’s basically it. What’s important here is the experience.

This is possibly one of the best films about addiction ever seen (I watched it in a double bill with The Lost Weekend which actually works out as a pretty natural combo). Boyle and screenwriter Andrew Hodge aren’t scared to show that drugs at times can be fun (after all if they didn’t make you feel good part of the time why would you do them?) and they can give colour to life (particularly to the shallow non entities this film centres on). The is even a strange family warmth to Renton and friends getting smacked out in an otherwise disgusting dilapidated drug pit, listening to Sick Boy dissect the Sean Connery Bond films. This is then brilliantly counterbalanced by the appalling lows – from the truly unsettling dead baby, abandoned and unfed in said drug den, to Renton’s appalling cold turkey.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing here is that Danny Boyle directs with such verve and with a gleeful delight for every single shooting and editing trick in the book, but the film never feels like a triumph of style over substance, or as if the tricks are the centre of the director’s attention. Instead throughout the whole film you can tell the heart of the film makers – and therefore the heart of the viewer – is also focused on the story and the characters. So we get a film that crackles with energy, with a sense of youthful vitality (that is vital to understanding its characters), has an attractive anti-society message – but also reminds us that the perils of following this kind of counter culture life can be truly horrifying.

At the centre of this film is Ewan McGregor, who I don’t think has ever found a role that he could seize and bring to life as successfully as he did with this one. McGregor is captivating, managing to skilfully demonstrate without any judgement a man who believes he is strong, but is in fact desperately weak. His performance is so charismatic that you hardly notice that Renton is, actually, a pretty nasty person. High or not he has a barely concealed contempt for nearly everyone around him, his reaction to the baby death is shockingly cold, his treatment of Tommy laced with indifference, his pronouncements to the audience overflow with self-regard and delusion. But you just don’t notice.

What you do notice is that Robert Carlyle’s Begbie is a total nutter. Just like McGregor, I think Carlyle struggled to find a role that matched this one, probably not helped by the string of psychos he was offered by casting directors. Carlyle again actually isn’t in the film that much, but he nails how terrifying total self belief can be when matched with a complete lack of any moral sense. In fact most of the cast have hardly ever been better. Excellent support also comes from Peter Mullan, Eileen Nicholas, James Cosmo, Shirley Henderson and Stuart McQuarrie while Irvine Welsh pops up as low rent dealer.

Electric film making with a heart, I don’t think even Danny Boyle has topped this. There is something strangely perfect about this film – anything more and it might out stay it’s welcome, but every scene has something magic in it, some little touch that stays in the mind – either performance, dialogue, direction or all three. It looks fantastic and seemed to define its era. So fingers crossed for the sequel. No pressure…