Review of Trance (2013) by Hugh R — 07 Mar 2015

Rant Review.

Screw this movie and the horse it rode in on. I only gave it 1 Star because the acting was good and the cinematography was good. The rest of the movie was pure drek. SLIGHT SPOILERS! Between the science of hypnosis being COMPLETELY misrepresented and used as a blanket excuse for plot holes, the characters all being deplorable sociopaths, and the ending asking us to forgive every evil deed and walk away with a whimsical sense of flirtatious mystery simply because of the gender of the one character, this is the first movie in a while that I was genuinely enraged by. Here is a test I apply occasionally to movies to see if I am being pandered to: If you reverse the gender of every major character and change nothing else, would the protagonist still be a hero or just be a self-serving monster? In this case...monster. And there was ZERO reason for the graphic nature of the nudity in this movie. Now, I don't care if you include some nudity in your movie as long as it serves the story, and in this case the nudity is mostly in service of the story, BUT when you make the scenes so blatant and graphic that it comes across as an EXCUSE to show graphic nudity, you go way past artistic expression and wind up right back on the level of a 70s exploitation film.

This was a truly awful movie with no sense of itself that thought it was smarter and bigger than it was. it comes across as though written by an immature film student with social issues and fetishistic tendencies and no sense of restraint. The movie you see in the previews is better. Just watch the ads for this film and imagine a better story. It'll save you the frustration, time, and cash you'd just wind up wasting on this mess. I wish I could hypnotize the memory of this awful movie out of my head.