Trance (2013)

- Hypnotic? No, you may have just fallen asleep.

I was never a fan of "28 days later", I really despised "Sunshine" but quite simply: "Trance" is Danny Boyle's worst movie yet.

This is one of those occasions when a prominent name and a misleading trailer drag you into the theater just to find out that things are not always what they seem. If you think you are promised a psychotic mindbender you should adjust yourself to see only one thing bend: your patience.

Trance isn't the next absorbing trip that "Trainspotting" was. Its 101 minutes of running time feel more like 127 hours. Like "127 hours" this film's setup is very simple. The great thing about "127 hours", however, was that it took that little idea of a man struggling to survive and made it into a compelling, emotional journey despite all its limitations and boundaries. Trance, on the other hand, starts out with an idea that isn't even remotely interesting in the first place and stays with it until things turn upside down and the film adrifts into complete idiocy.

The film begins as a usual heist movie. Simon (James McAvoy) works as a security guy at an auction house. There he is responsible for all the artwork. In a voice over he explains the preventive measures and rules to follow in case there is a robbery. Simultaneously, a team of criminals infiltrate the latest auction trying to get their hands on a 25 million dollar painting. On his way to the safe Simon is confronted by the leader of the gangster's squad Franck. Next thing he knows is that he's waking up in hospital after a hard bang on the head. But that's just the beginning.

Soon Franck and his gang return. They are still in search of the painting that had not been in Simon's bag. But since that incident Simon suffers from amnesia and he can't remember what happened nor where he has put the damn thing. The only chance to regain access to his lost memories is hypnosis. So, Rosario Dawson as hypnotist Elizabeth is hired to get this information out of Simon's mind.

Most of the film is devoted to the process of getting closer to the truth. It's not a very exciting or dramatic goal to look forward to. The film wastes most of its time with meaningless interogation scenes and completely arbitrary obstacles that only delay a progress in the process as well as in the plot. Not a single line of dialog has some wit or insight. Most of it is talking about what happens or what the characters are going to do next. The film also establishes an incomprehensible love triangle and features a very obscure nude scene. There is something way off with this picture as many of the oblique shots and camera angles point out obviously.

So far the movie has been a superficial and slow-paced amnesia thriller with soulless characters and one nasty fingernail-pulling scene as its sad climax. This is about as entertaining as watching someone trying to find his lost keys.

As we dig deeper into Simon's brain the movie starts using the hypnosis idea as a device to create multiple dimensions of narrative desperately trying to confuse us. But the screenwriters obviously have no understanding of how to set up such a multilayered story. Most of the time it's easy to spot when we are in trance. And often times these sequences turn out to not mean a thing. This is the worst kind of writing and the prime example of how to not do a movie that relies solely on a twisty ending. What a film like "Inception" did, was to set up its agenda in the first act and then demand the audience to follow through 1 1/2 hours of engaging plot on that basis. What "Trance" does is bore us with an uninteresting story for an hour and then throw everything into the garbage can to tell us that that's not what this is all about. As if we wouldn't have guessed it. And again, they keep explaining every turn with dialog. Those who are just a little suspicious won't have a hard time to figure out early who the key character is here. But the final revelation is so ludicrous and implausible, there is no way you can see that coming. The writing is as manipulative as some of the characters are.

Let's hope Danny Boyle recovers from this project - hypnosis may help, as they can do almost anything, at least to those who are easily receptive. I don't think he put a great stamp on the film. His direction is tired and unremarkable. The soundtrack is irritating, the characters are hollow, their motifs either mundane or far fetched and the plot is on auto-pilot until it crashes into your head.

"Trance" is a little bit of Guy Ritchie's "RocknRolla": silly and pointless but without the humor, the intertwining characters and dodgy plotlines. It's a little bit of "Inception" but without its ambition, clever structure and interesting narrative ideas. It's a little bit of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" but without its artistic merit and without a single interesting thought about human relationships. And it's complete trash.

TRAILER:
Watch the Trailer for "Trance" on Youtube