Ecstasy (2012)

Even if no one tells you, that the novel this is based on is by the same author who wrote "Trainspotting", you'd get that after a couple of minutes for sure. It's too early to really tell, but Ewan McGregor this ain't. Still the central performance is really good and you get the ever beautiful K. Kreuk.Story-wise you shouldn't expect much. Very predictable and some cliché scenes, with a bad guy who relishes in his role, but almost gets underplayed by the characters inabilities. Our main character is as mostly in this cases one of his own worst enemies. Decent little thriller that has all the right ingredients, but never fully takes off

Saw this article about Mark Blamire's design of the poster in http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/april/Was a cleaver marketing package. But the story and script in the film are very cleaver too. I have seen the film a few times and there are few films these days that are worthy of multiple viewings.Although marketed to Neds and the like, the film is about the spiritual aspect of redemption and getting another chance. Who wouldn't want another chance to change things?The cast did a wicked job of show what Ecstasy is really like. Irvine Welsh gave his stamp of approval and loved the film. I was at the Glasgow Film Festival screening and the Q+A with Mr. Welsh was a hoot!The definitive film about Ecstasy and clubbing culture.

Adapted from one of three stories - The Undefeated - taken from Irvine Welsh's collection of three tales of chemical romance, sees a group of twenty-somethings indulging in the clubbing/pilling scene, and they hold the drug in high regard, often referring to it in terms of their connections to spirituality. They build their lives around such psychoactive explorations. Lloyd (Adam Sinclair) gets involved in drug dealing, and finds himself smuggling from Amsterdam, for local "hard- man" dealer, Solo (Carlo Rota). It of course all comes crumbling down; it wouldn't be a Welsh story if it didn't have the morality to take his characters to the depths of their situations and depravity (or though less depravity that, say, The Acid House (1998)). A Canadian girl working in Edinburgh, Heather (played by pretty/vacant Kristin Kreuk), meets Lloyd and they fall for each other under the influence of E, and they begin a saccharine, cringe-worthy, pathetic love affair. Billy Boyd's character somehow ends up institutionalised, and basically becomes Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and the other friend pops up when required. Lloyd still owes Solo money, and this causes violent crescendos. It also attempts to connect the spiritual aspects of the chemically enhanced state of euphoria associated with ecstasy, with the natural chemical brain functions that occur when in love - aww, how cute! It's all very poorly executed. The film making is uninspired, and seems to want to "borrow" many '90's cinematic tricks that were used for these kind of films (such as the other Welsh adaptation, and hugely successful Trainspotting (1996)), but they simply do not work, and to be honest, are completely dated by 21st century visuals - I mean, who really wishes to be given each characters name on the screen when, for one we don't actually care, and second, would you really do that when introducing a character half way through the film? What we can basically take from this, is that the post-modern aspects of '90's cinema are thankfully over, and this film is over a decade too late. Is the subject even relevant anymore? Or is this just a case of me no longer being in my twenties, and out-of-touch with youth culture. Perhaps, but I an still observant enough to adamantly state that this film is s**t. And for a final piece of postmodernist bulls**t, the film is marketed with exactly the same iconography as Trainspotting was sixteen years previously - pathetic.

Worst film of its genre I have seen and there are some real stinkers. Really didn't get it, at all. I have read all Irvine Welsh books, including his early works and am truly speechless. Was really looking forward to seeing it. Sacrilege! Started off o.k, then lost its way and turned into a disgracefully cheesy, poorly scripted, love story. Male character massages female character 'youve had your heart broken, I can feel it in your back' cue dance music. 'its the small things that matter, you don't talk about them'....'the small things are the big things'. WHAT! Actors with really poor dutch, Scandinavian and even Scottish accents, can do better myself! Basically just dance music punctuated by terrible 'love' dialogue and speed-ed up camera work. Genuinely had to turn it off as the dialogue was that embarrassing it make me queasy. Its the anti train-spotting and in no way resembles Irvine Welshs work. If you are expecting a Danny Boyle type or Irvine Welsh based movie you will be sorely disappointed. It contains drugs , yes, and its based in Scotland. Thats it.