Saw this for the first time in at least a decade recently. Still seems to be oddly little known outside the UK considering that it's Danny Boyle's one and only 'warm up' movie before he started doing great things, and considering it's still totally watchable.
Two starmaking performances in this thing, one from Boyle who takes a small scale setup and makes it feel as dynamic and energetic as you'd now expect from him. Second is McGregor who's so magnetic here that he was obviously a perfect match for Boyle from the start (and all the more sad that it fizzled out so soon).
That said, stuff that didn't bother me watching it as a teenager now feel kind of off now. The whole plot is built around a plan that is just totally stupid. They were absolutely innocent of the guy's death, there was no reason for anyone else to assume the guy hadn't hidden the money somewhere else before he died. All they needed to do was hide the friggin' money! Making you all look guilty as fuck by dismembering and burying his corpse, as if no one would ever think to track down this missing guy they know nothing about... yeah great plan guys.
Another thing is that as charismatic as McGregor's character is, it has the weird effect of making him come across as a total sociopath for the first half of the film. He's the one who pushes for the ridiculous, reckless plan, who manipulates Eccleston's character into going along with it and doing the dirty work for them, and he gets over the sick brutality of what they've done in like 5 minutes. Maybe this was intentional, but I'm pretty sure by the end of the movie we're supposed to be rooting for him as the likable protagonist.
And Eccleston is the unlikeable, uptight one who becomes the villain. But again, for the first half of the movie, even if he's bit of a tit, he's still the only one who seems to have halfway sensible emotional reactions to the messed up things they're doing. Him turning into a psychotic loon seems to happen because the plot demands it more than because it makes much sense for the character. It might actually have been more interesting if charming old Ewan was the one to turn into the bad guy. Kerry Fox suddenly turning into some manipulative femme fatale at the end didn't make a whole lot of sense either.
Still, basically a good film. Just don't look for realistic character studies.
Two starmaking performances in this thing, one from Boyle who takes a small scale setup and makes it feel as dynamic and energetic as you'd now expect from him. Second is McGregor who's so magnetic here that he was obviously a perfect match for Boyle from the start (and all the more sad that it fizzled out so soon).
That said, stuff that didn't bother me watching it as a teenager now feel kind of off now. The whole plot is built around a plan that is just totally stupid. They were absolutely innocent of the guy's death, there was no reason for anyone else to assume the guy hadn't hidden the money somewhere else before he died. All they needed to do was hide the friggin' money! Making you all look guilty as fuck by dismembering and burying his corpse, as if no one would ever think to track down this missing guy they know nothing about... yeah great plan guys.
Another thing is that as charismatic as McGregor's character is, it has the weird effect of making him come across as a total sociopath for the first half of the film. He's the one who pushes for the ridiculous, reckless plan, who manipulates Eccleston's character into going along with it and doing the dirty work for them, and he gets over the sick brutality of what they've done in like 5 minutes. Maybe this was intentional, but I'm pretty sure by the end of the movie we're supposed to be rooting for him as the likable protagonist.
And Eccleston is the unlikeable, uptight one who becomes the villain. But again, for the first half of the movie, even if he's bit of a tit, he's still the only one who seems to have halfway sensible emotional reactions to the messed up things they're doing. Him turning into a psychotic loon seems to happen because the plot demands it more than because it makes much sense for the character. It might actually have been more interesting if charming old Ewan was the one to turn into the bad guy. Kerry Fox suddenly turning into some manipulative femme fatale at the end didn't make a whole lot of sense either.
Still, basically a good film. Just don't look for realistic character studies.
