Trance

Always like keeping up to date with Danny Boyle's films. Aside from The Beach, all of his movies have been extremely strong and I just love his energetic style behind the camera. I think Trance peeked it's head into theaters sometime in the spring and went relatively unnoticed. Wikipedia says it only pulled in $22 million from theaters - that's a meh. Needless-to-say, the low hype and limited release was probably good reason why I didn't find my way to see this movie until it came out to DVD. 

... and I can understand why 20th Century Fox was hesitant to drop all their money in publicizing this guy.

I'm not saying it's bad - in fact, far from it - but it is a difficult movie to follow. If you're completely clueless as what this movie is suppose to be all about, here's the lowdown: James McAvoy works as an high-scale art auctioneer. There's an emergency (heist threat) while auctioning off an expense piece of art. McAvoy goes to place the art in a drop shoot for safe keeping when he's intercepted by a thief. During the altercation, the thief hits him on the head and McAvoy goes unconscious. He awakes with a bit of amnesia and learns a lot of startling events. For one, he was in on the heist, and more importantly... the painting that the thieves thought they successfully stole is actually missing (stole an empty case). With the help of a hypnotist/therapist, the group of thieves attempt to help McAvoy go into the deep recesses of his mind to figure out what happened the missing piece of artwork. And there are plenty of surprising developments suppressed in his foggy mind. 

Sorry if that brief introduction to the plot was confusing, but that's what this film is. Confusing. It's one of those stories that just frustrates you more and more the deeper you get into it; however, it does redeem itself. By the climax, there's enough info clearly revealed to help the majority of the audience connect all the dots. It's a relief, but, unfortunately, the payoff isn't anything incredible. 

And that's my overall stance on the movie. It's fun and entertaining as you try to unravel this mystery, but - as with any good mystery - the ending has to be something worthwhile. This ending has some fun surprises, but really just didn't do it for me. 

Still a Boyle fan. Still pumped for his next film - a sequel to Trainspotting. As for anyone else somewhat interested in this work of his, I would give it a go if you have the time. Great cast and great performances all around. Just know that you're probably not alone if three quarters of the way through you find yourself completely lost. Just push on and it will hopefully all come together.