Review of Trance (2013) by Trevor M — 03 Sep 2013

This beautifully shot and wonderfully acted film begins with the promise of an enjoyable movie and then spends the next hour smashing that movie to dust and replacing it with a grotesque and sexual ride of confusion that ends in an extremely disappointing and unsatisfying final scene.

- Details Breakdown -.

The Good: The world to which the audience is first introduced is complex and intriguing, but with enough familiarity to not get lost. A story set in the world of high end art theft is both familiar and loved territory for many a movie-goer. The first act of this movie delivers everything that one would expect out of a movie on the subject and then presents a very interesting problem for the main character to overcome. There is also some wonderful scenes that are delivered directly to the audience that are masterfully done. Delving directly into the mind of the protagonist is rarely done in cinema and, when done correctly, gives some extremely deep insight into the hopes and fears of the character. This personal exploration of the character combined with James McAvoy's excellent performance creates a solid connection between character and viewer. There are many twists and turns to be had in this movie, which is why this is in no way a "heist movie". Yes, there is a heist in the beginning, but by the end of the movie, that fact is almost completely irrelevant since the genre placement of the story morphs quite frequently. The movie is shot quite beautifully and the sound design is done masterfully such that it feels like an art house movie with the budget of a main-stream Hollywood film.

The Bad: There are several very strong issues with this film. First and foremost, it is, quite simply, overcomplicated. There's a large numbers of plot twists that all occur in a very short amount of time near the end and some of these are reversals of the previous plot twist that was a big deal ten minutes ago. This would not be as big of a deal if the final reveal of the real story was not so much of a let down.

Massive Spoiler: The protagonist is actually the antagonist, the antagonists are actually just a neutral party, and the neutral party is actually also an antagonist. The protagonist actually gets killed and the antagonist runs away with the love interest.

Overall it is an extremely unsatisfying ending, especially since it really does not make a whole lot of sense. The next major issue with this film is the focus on the protagonist's strange sexual fetish. There are certain things an audience member simply does not want to know and this movie crosses that line over and over again. Why do Hollywood writers think that a screenplay is the perfect place to express their strange sexual fetishes to the world? Please, just stop already, it's embarrassing.