Trainspotting T2

I want my money back. Where's all the trains?

T2 is a harder film than Trainspotting. It's violent, it's the violence Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie have done to themselves in the past 20 years. Still funny, still new in places but hard.

All alive, life is their sentence. Not being fathers in any real sense of the word is their worst punishment for being clueless, stupid,and sometimes cruel and selfish for 20 years. 20 years of learning who they are, learning their limitations.

Last time Begbie was my favourite. He was violent but only now and again. These days he's violent all the time. He's horrible.

Today Sick Boy is my favourite. I did not anticipate that. Sick Boy is the trier. He's the one who works and tries and lives in the here and now and also has his head in cloud-cuckoo land. He's me, I'm Sick Boy without the sick!

Ever the one for pulling the birds he has a smart little girlfriend. Veronica is completely new to the story. Watch that woman. Meanwhile Sick Boy is pulling pints for old beeros in the ratty old boozer his auntie used to own. He dreams of getting a government grant to redevelop an old Leith warehouse near the docks into a modern Leith whorehouse. A man with a sense of history. Or something. He has even filled out the planning application forms.Trouble is snorting coke up his nose takes away what little sense he has. He also has three very dodgy friends...

I'll leave you with a point to ponder. In the original, and in the book, Renton tells the story. Towards the end, in T2 the story passes to Spud. There's a reality here. Spud,who is finally smack free, has been here all along. Not the other three who have all been away in their own ways, together with the author. Spud is here. He is the only one.

A lot of cinemas are taking T2 off the programme after the evening show today to make way for all the half-term garbage. Watch it. It's the best thing you'll do all week.