"T2 Trainspotting" Review

Home , Ewen Bremner, Mark Renton, T2 Trainspotting, Trainspotting (novel)

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2017

Volume 163, No. 63 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 162 years

also ready to avenge Renton’s be- t r a y a l . ‘T2’d o e s n’t pack “Sick Boy”Simon has traded his heroin addiction for cocaine. He runs his late aunt’s pub (where customers are scarce) as a side- RE B E C CA line to his pornography blackmail the same rush as L. FORD business. His accomplice and sometime romantic partner is a young prostitute from Bulgaria, Rebecca L. Ford is counsel at Scharf Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova). Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates her Though half the men’s age, its 1996 precursor practice on complex litigation, compliance, board governance and specialized Veronika is clearly the adult employment issues. She is the former among them. Renton, Simon and executive vice president for litigation and Spud are all besotted by her. Riotous ‘Trainspotting ’came out 21 years intellectual property at MGM. She can be Everything is not immediately reached at [email protected]. forgiven between Simon and Ren- ago, and its characters didn’t age so well ton. When Renton offers Simon the share of the money he filched locomotive wallpaper. that “r i g h t f u l l y ”belongs to Simon, ven the worst things with Mark Renton (Ewan McGre- Broke and broken, no one from the realization of the lost oppor- that happen in one’s gor, the “Star Wars”p r e q u e l s ) the old gang has aged well. tunities the money represents hits youth can be exhilarat- sneaking out on his posse —Spud Robert Carlyle, the heartthrob in Simon hard. “What am I sup- ing —intoxicating —e s - (Ewen Bremner), “Sick Boy”S i - “The Full Monty,”looks like Mike posed to do with this?”he spits pecially if there’sa mon (Jonny Lee Miller, “E l e m e n - Ditka and acts like Joe Pesci as the back at Renton, “Buy a f***ing Epounding soundtrack in the back- tary”) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle) violently volatile Begbie. Early in time machine?” ground playing Iggy Pop’s“Lust —taking off with the proceeds of “T 2 ,”Begbie is an inmate at one of The improbable Spud is the for Life.” their drug heist. Her Majesty’s prisons. His terrified Boswell of this coterie of coke- But a bunch of 46-year-olds Why didn’t Renton just ride off and ineffective counsel has mis- heads. Obviously intended as a knocking heads, snorting coke and into the pre-millennium sunset handled his appeal. Begbie ar- stand-in for the author of the orig- making sex tapes for blackmail? and stay there? (He could have ranges for another inmate to stab inal novel “T r a i n s p o t t i n g , ”I r v i n e Not so much. lived a long and happy life as, say, him and then is transferred to a Welsh, Spud is urged by Renton We ’ve moved on; why haven’t Ewan McGregor.) hospital. He escapes after conning to choose an addiction other than t h ey? heroin. Spud chooses writing. It “T2 Trainspotting”is director proves to be his salvation. Danny Boyle’s follow-up to his ri- “T2”is a perfectly acceptable movie. But what “T2”is a perfectly acceptable otous T1, “T r a i n s p o t t i n g , ”the movie. But what we really want is iconic, head-banging, Cool Britan- we really want is the same kind of rush that T1 the same kind of rush that T1 nia trip through Edinburgh, Scot- delivered 20 years ago. It doesn’t land’s 90’s drug scene. Grimy, delivered 20 years ago. It doesn’t happen. happen. rambunctious and packed with “Yo u ’re a tourist of your own overt references to “A Clockwork Now 20 years later and after the security guard into leaving the y o u t h , ”Simon says of Renton’s re- O r a n g e , ”1996’s“T ra i n s p o t t i n g ”let his mother’s death, Renton re- room. Begbie goes straight home, turn to Edinburgh, pretty much us believe there was nowhere to turns home, divorced, childless, longing to spend quality time with summing up the “T2”sequel as go but up for Boyle’s decidedly unemployed and living in his his university-bound son by com- w e l l . down-and-out junkies. T1 ended childhood bedroom with the mitting burglaries together. He is This train has left the station.